Posts by Jon Reed

https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:ww72bc39w/audio.mp3 It’s been an entire year since the pandemic hit with full force, an anniversary that gives us a chance to reflect on what we have all experienced, and how the history of this difficult plague year will be written. Joining us is Jim McGrath, one of the curators of The Journal of the Plague…

In our fragmented and polarized world, we have few opportunities to talk to people beyond our immediate circle of family, friends, and work. And yet those rare conversations with others can have a positive impact on our society and ourselves. We’re joined by Cara Solomon, Executive Director and founder of Everyday Boston, to help us…

Since the dawn of the printing press, women have written and published works of prose, poetry, science, and philosophy, and yet these texts have almost always received less attention than books written by men. In the early years of the internet, one project sought to redress this imbalance, and to make women writers not only…

As listeners of popular music, we can’t help but wonder: What is it like to be up there on that stage, playing for thousands of fans? And what is the creative process like behind the scenes? We’re joined by a former reporter and editor at the Boston Herald, Larry Katz, who for decades interviewed some…

Our first episode of 2021 features the winners of the Three-Minute Thesis Contest at Northeastern University, sponsored by the Graduate Women in Science and Engineering and the Northeastern University Library. Our guests are Alicia Volmar, who discusses her work on a common protein and the origins of cancer; Theresa Davenport on how the shape of…

It is far too early to understand what happened in this historic year of 2020, but not too soon to grasp what we will write that history from: data—really big data. Dan was recently on an extremely relevant panel about Data Histories of Health, which aimed to understand what happened in 2020, and to see…

There has been a notable change in the view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and other queer people in the United States, with growing social acceptance. But there remain struggles with identity in the workplace, and for many young queer people, an uncertain pathway toward life and work fulfillment. Recently a new podcast has launched…

The 2020 election is finally over in the United States, but the polarization of the country continues to grow. We used to be a nation that read the same papers and watched the same evening news programs; now many of us have completely separate sources of information, and news outlets have strayed far from the…

We have long been told that this will be the Chinese century, as the most populous nation in the world achieves economic dominance and as it extends its political influence across the globe. But that still emerging future will also be an extension of China’s complex past, when other nations arrived on its shores with…

This year, as the global pandemic rapidly spread, President Trump took the extraordinary step of withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. There was a fierce backlash to this development in medical and policy circles, both within the U.S. and internationally. But beyond doctors and healthcare advocates, few know exactly what the World…