With Good Reason

Does the radiation emitted by our cell phones harm us? Deborah O’Dell (University of Mary Washington) recently finished a study that found cell phone radiation can cause changes to our cells. Also: In 2018, most people diagnosed with blood cancer can find a donor to help with their treatment. But not everyone. Karen Ballen (University of Virginia Health Systems) has been working to expand the dono...

There’s a new podcast called Sacred & Profane hosted by two Religious Studies professors, Martien Halvorson-Taylor and Kurtis Schaeffer (University of Virginia). The podcast explores how people think and act with religion, how religion can affect our experience on almost every level, and the relationship between religion, race, and democracy. Later in the show: Christina Anne Kilby (James Madison...

From tracking tigers in Nepal to mountainside surgery on Montana’s wolverines, Deborah McCauley (VIEW) is on a mission to save disappearing wildlife around the world. And: Rowan Lockwood (William & Mary) is taking a closer look at the fossils of giant oysters to learn how to rebuild oyster reefs today. Later in the show: Crystal blue lakes might make for a popular tourist spot, but they’re startin...

When writer and radio producer Lulu Miller (Invisibilia) discovered she’d have to leave Virginia, she wrote a startling love letter to the state-- one that charges everyday people to stay angry about injustice. A.D. Carson (University of Virginia) uses hip-hop and spoken word to tell hard truths about racist history, cutting through denial with metaphor. Later in the show: Tawnya Pettiford-Wates (...

Your summer vacation packing list has some key items: cell phone charger, swimsuit, toothbrush. We're here to add some essentials to your list, with the best book recs from the With Good Reason universe.

U.S. troops turned to popular music as a way of coping with the war in Vietnam. The authors of “We Gotta Get Out of this Place," Doug Bradley and Craig Werner, play songs the soldiers listened from that era and explore how that music became the soundtrack of the war. Joyce Hoffman is the author of On Their Own: Women Journalists in Vietnam. She shares stories of women who won esteemed prizes for t...

The evolution of social change in America can be traced through popular songs by the likes of Nat King Cole, Percy Mayfield, Lena Horne, and the Impressions. Charlie McGovern (William and Mary) shares from his new book Body and Soul: Race, Citizenship and Popular Music, 1930-1977. Nancy Hanrahan (George Mason University) says debates about music and democracy used to focus on a shared national ide...

On the eve of WWI, Antoine Köpe had a front seat to history. A century later, Antoine’s elaborate journals, cartoons, recordings, and collections reveal what it was like in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Filmmaker Nefin Dinç (James Madison University) is collecting Antoine’s memories into a new documentary. And: Native-Uruguayan Gabriela Toletti (Tidewater Community College and Old Dominion...

When Jennifer Malia (Norfolk State University) started researching her young daughter’s behaviors, she realized that both she and her daughter were on the autism spectrum. Leslie Daniel (Radford University) celebrates autism and shares some basic strategies for communicating with children on the autism spectrum. Through personal experience and extensive research, Jackie Spainhour’s has come up wit...

The very first ironclad ship built by the Union Navy in the Civil War was called The Monitor. It revolutionized the way battleships were built. Jonathan White (Christopher Newport University) is the co-author of “Our Little Monitor: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War.” Civil War buffs pride themselves on knowing the great battles of the war. But what about the fighting that took place away fr...

When parents die, we face powerful emotions, rituals, and tasks, including the eulogy. Listen as poet Jahan Ramazani (University of Virginia) pays tribute at the 2016 memorial service to his father. Also: In addition to our grief at the loss of parents, we’re often also faced with so much stuff. Marietta McCarty (Piedmont Virginia Community College) wrote a loving memoir about the daunting task of...

A poet loses his dad, a daughter empties her parents house, a coach copes with his grief after his player dies in an accident.

In 1883 a young African American worker was alleged to have brushed shoulders with a white woman as they passed each other on a narrow sidewalk in Danville, Virginia. A race riot erupted and Jane Dailey (University of Chicago) says the white supremacist backlash that followed led to the disenfranchisement of Black Virginians for nearly 100 years. And: Jeff McClurken (University of Mary Washington)...

A clip of Kim Delevett talking about returning to Vietnam.

Native American historical leaders, Native recipes, and de-colonizing our diet!

In 1979, members of the KKK shot and killed five labor and civil rights activists in Greensboro, North Carolina. Aran Shetterly (Virginia Humanities Fellow), who is writing a book about the incident, says it still reverberates in the racial politics of Greensboro today. Also: The European philosophers of the Enlightenment argued that Europeans were civilized, but Africans were barbarians. Stefan W...

Chiquita L. Cross: Swing Low Sweet Chariot by With Good Reason

Charles Chico Wiley: Precious Lord

Christine Labuski and Nick Copeland (Virginia Tech) are the authors of “The World of Walmart: Discounting the American Dream.” They say there is a disconnect between the values that Walmart purports to champion and the reality of how it operates in our society. Plus: After 9-11, Brian Ulrich (Virginia Commonwealth University) has spent a decade photographing the landscape of consumerism across the...

This week we’re debuting a new podcast series called Broken Ground, produced by the Southern Environmental Law Center and hosted by Claudine Ebeid McElwain. Episode 1: The Kingston, Tennessee coal ash spill of 2008 and and its devastating consequences for hundreds of workers who had to clean up the toxic mess. Find more episodes at brokengroundpodcast.org. Later in the show: In 2010 the small, mos...

Some of the Vietnam War's most enduring legacies are the Vietnamese communities of America, made up of refugees who arrived en masse after the Fall of Saigon. In our final episode, we explore how these communities became a key to economic success for refugees, and how many still grappled with the complexities of gratitude, guilt, and silence. Members of the next generation share the delicate balan...

The end of the war and American withdrawal also marked the final days of a homeland for more than a million South Vietnamese people. We tell the story of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam as seen from both sides of the war.

The Fall of Saigon marked the bitter end of the American War in Vietnam and the loss of a homeland for hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people. We share stories of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops, along with heroic rescues and harrowing escapes of Vietnamese citizens. Then we take a glimpse into post-war life under communist rule in Vietnam. Later in the show: Some of the Vietnam War’s mo...

As robots become ubiquitous, will humans trust or fear them? James Bliss (Old Dominion University) is studying how people might interact with robots that act as military peacekeepers. Scott England (Virginia Tech) is part of a team that won an award for discoveries on Mars. Now he’s leading a new NASA mission to explore this lesser known upper atmosphere. A fourth-generation shipbuilder is helping...

An English professor who loves the Harry Potter books brings a few lucky students each year to London to visit the magical sites in the fantasy series. Alicia DeFonzo (Old Dominion University) leads them to the set of Hogwarts school and Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station for 3 weeks of study of magical creatures, potions, and herbology. And: The epic fantasy series Game of Thrones will return f...