Best Paula Larsson Podcasts (2023)

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 101 - HIV-AIDS in Kenya with Alex Otieno 1:09:17

2M ago1:09:17

1:09:17

Alex Otieno (Arcadia University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss HIV-AIDS in Kenya. After a broad overview of the AIDS pandemic from the 1980s until today, including the issues of mortality and treatment, the conversation moves to Africa and Kenya. Alex discusses the early failure of Kenya to deal with the pandemic, and the rapid evolution of its re…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 100 - The Infectious Historians’ 100th Anniversary 54:30

2M ago54:30

54:30

Merle and Lee reflect on the past 100 episodes of the podcast. They outline some of their plans for the podcast moving forward, share some of their own research projects, consider how Covid has affected academic life (and the podcast’s development), and discuss their respective disease courses this semester and how those relate to the podcast so fa…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 99 - Health and Illness in the Ancient World with Helen Rhee 1:00:59

3M ago1:00:59

1:00:59

Helen Rhee (Westmont College) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her work on illness, pain and healthcare in early Christianity. The conversation begins with an overview of medicine in Greco-Roman antiquity, and transitions from there to survey health and illness in the Hebrew Bible before moving on to early Christian times. The topics cove…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 98 - Anti-Vaccination movements with Paula Larsson 1:05:43

4M ago1:05:43

1:05:43

Paula Larsson (University of Oxford) comes on the new Infectious Historians episode to talk about her work on anti-vaccination movements. The conversation begins with an overview of vaccines before moving into vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination. Paula explores the similarities in anti-vaccination movements and their arguments over the past two …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 97 - Empire and the Development of Medicine with Jim Downs 1:16:17

5M ago1:16:17

1:16:17

Jim Downs (Gettysburg College) joins the Infectious Historians to talk about his recent book. The conversation begins with epidemiology and its origins, focusing on the 18th century military bureaucracy and the production of scientific knowledge in venues associated with slavery, prisons, the colonies and war. Jim follows the people who produced th…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 96 - Diseases and Urban Space with Sara Carr 1:13:11

5M ago1:13:11

1:13:11

Sara Carr (Northeastern University) joins the Infectious Historians for a conversation about her work on redesigning urban space in response to a pandemic. The discussion begins with a survey of the major changes in urban landscapes in the US over the past two centuries. Sara presents the epidemics she covers - ranging from cholera to urban blight …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 95 - New Research on the Source of the Black Death with Maria Spyrou and Phil Slavin 1:11:40

6M ago1:11:40

1:11:40

Maria Spyrou (University of Tübingen) and Phil Slavin (University of Stirling) join Merle and Lee to discuss their recent Nature publication on the source of the Black Death. After quickly covering the basics of paleogenetics and the history of the Black Death(!), the conversation moves on to the article itself and highlights its importance while a…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 94 - Epidemic Empire and Colonialism with Anjuli Raza Kolb 1:11:07

7M ago1:11:07

1:11:07

Anjuli Raza Kolb (University of Toronto) joins Merle and Lee to discuss “Epidemic Empire”, her recent book on the history behind the metaphor of the “terrorism epidemic”. The conversation covers the development of the idea of insurgent violence as an epidemic in the nineteenth century, touching on imperialism and colonialism, particularly from a Br…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 93 - Pollen, infectious disease and the Black Death with Adam Izdebski 1:03:19

7M ago1:03:19

1:03:19

Adam Izdebski (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his work at the frontier between pollen and disease, and in particular in light of his recent work analyzing pollen from the time of the Black Death. The conversation begins with an introduction to palynology (pollen analysis) and its li…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 92 - Tropical Disease & Medicine with Suman Seth 1:03:53

8M ago1:03:53

1:03:53

Suman Seth [https://sts.cornell.edu/suman-seth] joins Merle and Lee to talk about his work on medicine in the British colonies during the 18th century and how it changed as people learned about tropical diseases. Suman begins by providing background on how medicine was practiced in Britain and in the colonies, alongside how new generations learned …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 91 - The Mexican Church and Disease in the 16th century with Jennifer Hughes 1:05:59

8M ago1:05:59

1:05:59

Jennifer Hughes joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work on empire, society and church in 16th century Mexico. After Jennifer sets up the conversation with some background, the discussion focuses on the growth of the Catholic church in Mexico through the Spanish Empire against a backdrop of periodic epidemic disease, examining changes through both i…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 90 - Public Health Labs in History and during Covid with Claas Kirchhelle and Samantha Vanderslott 1:22:49

9M ago1:22:49

1:22:49

Claas Kirchhelle (University College Dublin) and Samantha Vanderslott (Oxford University) talk to Merle and Lee about the development and history of public health laboratories and how they worked (or didn’t) during Covid. After first discussing what a public health lab is and how they work, they speak about when they were created in a few countries…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 89 - Infectious Historians’ 2nd Anniversary! 32:34

10M ago32:34

32:34

Merle and Lee meet in person at Princeton University, where they both attended the first in person conference for over two years. The short episode begins with some reflections on Covid and its effects now that things are slowly returning to their pre-Covid state. The conversation continues towards thinking about the podcast’s past year, and Merle …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 88 - Immigrants and Quarantine at Israel’s Founding with Rhona Seidelman 58:13

10M ago58:13

58:13

Rhona Seidelman (Oklahoma University) talks to Merle and Lee about how the newly founded state of Israel quarantined immigrants at Shaar Ha’aliya. After discussing background information on how large the center was and how many people passed through it, she speaks about the diseases people were treated for while there and the reactions of the peopl…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 87 - Pasteur’s Empire with Aro Velmet 1:05:59

11M ago1:05:59

1:05:59

Aro Velmet (USC Dornsife) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on the Institut Pasteur in the context of colonial France in the late 19th century. The conversation begins with some background on colonial France and the French civilizing mission, then moves on to examine the foundation and operation of the Institut Pasteur, especially in the Fren…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 86 - The Antonine Plague with Colin Elliott 1:06:40

11M ago1:06:40

1:06:40

Colin Elliot (Indiana University) talks to Merle and Lee about the late second century CE Antonine Plague and the complicated ways to assess its impact in antiquity. He begins by offering the textbook background to the pandemic before turning to discussing the sources we have for the pandemic along with the problems each type of source has. Colin t…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 85 - Racial Scripts and Pandemics with Keith Wailoo 1:10:20

12M ago1:10:20

1:10:20

Keith Wailoo (Princeton University) talks to Merle and Lee about his work on racial scripts and the racialization of pandemics with a focus on Covid. He begins by discussing the idea of pandemics unfolding in dramatic acts and then explains the role of race in this story. Keith examines the deeper history of these racial scripts, along with the imp…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 84 - Memories and the Modern Uses of the Black Death with Ben Dodds 1:12:11

1y ago1:12:11

1:12:11

Ben Dodds (Florida State University) speaks with Merle and Lee about his new book on memories, myths, and the modern uses of the Black Death over the past 200 years. He begins by discussing the emotional appeal of why people continue to study the Black Death, along with the increased focus on the pandemic since the outbreak of the Cholera Pandemics…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 83 - Using Historical Epidemiology during Covid with Kaspar Staub 1:05:53

1y ago1:05:53

1:05:53

Kaspar Staub (University of Zurich) talks to Merle and Lee about his work in historical epidemiology and the ways in which it helps contextualize the ongoing Covid pandemic. After first offering background on the field and his education, Kaspar discusses one of his goals, which is to help public health officials and policy makers today understand t…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 82 - Animals and Disease with Rebecca Kaplan 1:07:26

1y ago1:07:26

1:07:26

Rebecca Kaplan (Oklahoma State University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss some of her recent work on animals and disease. Rebecca first explains the different reasons why we should care about disease in animals - ranging from moral reasons to economic reasons such as the impact on humans and their livelihoods. Rebecca also touches upon some of the …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 81 - Archaeology, Pandemics, and Climate Change with Susanne Hakenbeck 56:17

1y ago56:17

56:17

Susanne Hakenbeck (University of Cambridge) joins Merle and Lee to discuss the key role of archaeology in histories of disease, pandemics, and climate change in the ancient and medieval worlds. After discussing the place of archaeology in understanding health and disease, Susanne talks about the pivotal role archaeologists have in contextualizing d…

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Research on the Rocks

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Episode 5 - Anti-Vaxx History with Paula Larsson 1:10:48

1y ago1:10:48

1:10:48

Who knew that vaccine resistance is as old as vaccines?? Soon-to-be-Dr. Larsson did! In fact, she just wrote a whole dissertation on it! We are back from a long hiatus to talk about the history of vaccines and anti-vaccination movements with very special guest (and co-host, so let's face it, not actually that special) Paula Larsson. Listen on to le…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 80 - Spatial Disease and Covid with Graham Mooney 1:01:38

1y ago1:01:38

1:01:38

Graham Mooney (Johns Hopkins University) talks to Merle and Lee about the key roles of place and space in how we understand disease in the modern world. After defining these terms and offering a few examples of how to research them, Graham discusses the key role of disease surveillance and tof state coercion in imperial centers and their colonies. …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 79 - Healthcare and Immigrant Healthcare in the United States with Beatrix Hoffman 1:01:16

1+ y ago1:01:16

1:01:16

Beatrix Hoffman (Northern Illinois University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss the healthcare system in the United States. The conversation begins with an overview of the American healthcare system and its origins, then proceeds to cover governmental health programs, highlighting those who receive treatment (and in what form), and those …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 78 - Covid in Iowa with Emily Mendenhall 59:39

1+ y ago59:39

59:39

Emily Mendenhall (Georgetown University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss Covid in her hometown in northwest Iowa. The conversation begins with a definition and reflection on the idea of syndemic, then gravitates towards Emily’s own experiences returning to her hometown of Okoboji during Covid. Emily uses the Okoboji case study to disentangle issues …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 77 - Humans, Animals and the Environment in South Africa with Jules Skotnes-Brown 59:26

1+ y ago59:26

59:26

Jules Skotnes-Brown (University of St. Andrews) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on humans, animals and the environment in the context of South Africa at the turn of the 20th century. The interview begins with some background about South Africa and its disease landscape at the time. Jules covers some of the ideas the different contemporary g…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 76 - Vermin with Lisa Sarasohn 1:03:12

1+ y ago1:03:12

1:03:12

Lisa Sarasohn (Oregon State University) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss her forthcoming book on vermin since the 17th century. The interview begins with an overview of what vermin are - and how different animal species have been included or excluded throughout the years. The conversation then moves to touch upon early modern conceptions …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 75 - Translational Humanities with Kirsten Ostherr 1:06:49

1+ y ago1:06:49

1:06:49

Kirsten Ostherr (Rice University) joins Merle and Lee to discuss the role of the humanities in the context of Covid, in particular in an applied sense. The interview begins with an overview of Kirsten’s project and a few examples of current work in the applied humanities that attempts to address Covid. Kirsten notes how her background has helped he…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 74 - Smallpox, Inoculations, and the American Revolution with Andrew Wehrman 1:04:19

1+ y ago1:04:19

1:04:19

Andrew Wehrman (Central Michigan University) talks to Merle and Lee about the importance of public health, especially smallpox and inoculations, during the American Revolution. After first orienting listeners to the political situation in North America, Andrew discusses differences between public health in Britain and the colonies, along with how t…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 73 - Disease Studies Reflections during Covid 53:10

1+ y ago53:10

53:10

Merle and Lee have a reflective episode. The discussion begins with disease studies in academia during the pandemic in attempt to understand to what extent has the pandemic changed the ways in which scholars in the humanities and in particular history departments work on disease. When will things change? Should we expect a paradigm shift anytime so…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 72 - Climate Change and the Globalization of Disease in the Early Middle Ages with Tim Newfield 1:05:42

1+ y ago1:05:42

1:05:42

Tim Newfield (Georgetown University) talks to Merle and Lee about the connected histories of climate change and diseases that become pandemics, focusing on the early medieval and late antique periods. Tim opens by discussing the global cooling events starting in 536 and how researchers know they happened through various proxy datasets, such as tree…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 71 - Zombie Films with Todd Platts 1:04:03

1+ y ago1:04:03

1:04:03

Todd Platts (Piedmont Virginia Community College) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work on zombie films over the past half century. He begins by offering a history of zombie movies and the changing features and definition of the zombie. Todd points to a few key films - in particular George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead wh…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 70 - Covid, Policy and History with Ben Trump 1:06:07

1+ y ago1:06:07

1:06:07

Ben Trump (US Army) joins the Infectious Historians for a wide-ranging conversation. He begins with his public health work before Covid and his path to the US Army. Ben then outlines the Covid pandemic through his experience of working on several related projects, already since January/February 2020. Some of these included how Covid might spread in…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 69 - Ottoman Medicines and Disease with Miri Shefer Mossensohn 1:08:25

1+ y ago1:08:25

1:08:25

Miri Shefer Mossensohn sits down with Merle and Lee to talk about Ottoman history of medicines and disease. She begins by discussing the broad contours of medicine and disease in the Ottoman Empire, which lasted for 600 years. Miri reveals the wide variety of medical individuals and institutions that existed in the Ottoman world, with few standardi…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 68 - Persecution of minorities during the Black Death with Tzafrir Barzilay 56:31

1+ y ago56:31

56:31

Tzafrir Barzilay (Ben Gurion University of the Negev) joins Merle and Lee to discuss persecution of minorities and in particular Jews before and during the Black Death. After some background on the Black Death, Tzafrir uses the case study of Strasbourg to demonstrate how persecutions of minorities could be deeply embedded in local politics. The con…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 67 - Plague in Bombay and Urban Ecology with Emily Webster 1:02:45

1+ y ago1:02:45

1:02:45

Emily Webster (University of Chicago) joins Merle and Lee to discuss the significant plague outbreaks in Bombay during the Third Plague Pandemic of the turn of the 20th century and the place of environmental history in studying disease. After first surveying the Pandemic and its particular impact in Bombay, Emily discusses why the experience of Bom…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 66 - Early Modern Pandemics, Quantitative Research and Inequality with Daniel Curtis 1:00:30

1+ y ago1:00:30

1:00:30

Daniel Curtis (Erasmus University Rotterdam) talks to Merle and Lee about his diverse work that touches upon multiple disease-related fields. After an overview of the timeframe in which Daniel works - the late medieval and early modern periods, the conversation moves to a discussion of scholarly collaboration in the humanities. Daniel then discusse…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 65 - Scientific Freedom, the Cold War, and Communicating Science with Audra Wolfe 1:03:56

1+ y ago1:03:56

1:03:56

Audra Wolfe talks to Merle and Lee about her work on scientific freedom during the Cold War and how it still shapes ideas about objectivity and politics in science to the present. After framing the discussion about the Cold War, Audra explains the notion of scientific freedom that supposedly allowed scientists to develop their own research agenda w…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 64 - Commerce, Capitalism, and the Making of Modern Medicine with Zachary Dorner 1:03:02

1+ y ago1:03:02

1:03:02

Zachary Dorner (University of Maryland) comes on to discuss his new book, Merchants of Medicine, which discusses the role of merchants, commerce, and capitalism in changing how medicine was made, administered, and thought about across the 18th century. Zack discusses the ideas about medicine before the 18th century and then highlights the dramatic …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 63 - How Plague was Taught during a Pandemic with Janet Kay 52:57

1+ y ago52:57

52:57

Janet Kay (Princeton) returns to the Infectious Historians to discuss her promised after action report on teaching her 100 person course, The Art & Archaeology of Plague, at Princeton University. After reminding listeners about the structure of the course, Janet discusses two key features: plague simulations and the guest lecturers from around the …

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 62 - Cancer with Robin Scheffler 1:02:47

1+ y ago1:02:47

1:02:47

Robin Scheffler (MIT) joins the Infectious Historians to discuss his recent book on cancer. Robin begins the interview with a broad discussion of cancer and the different ways it was perceived and conceptualized over the past century. The discussion touches upon topics such as the so-called “war” on cancer and its meaning; cancer and gender; some o…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 61 - Lyme Disease and Long Term Symptoms with Abigail Dumes 56:40

1+ y ago56:40

56:40

Abigail Dumes (University of Michigan) sits down to talk to Merle and Lee about her anthropological work on Lyme Disease and how it has shaped ideas about long term disease effects on people. After defining Lyme Disease and why its numbers have increased over the last few decades, she turns to the debate over clinical diagnosis of the disease and t…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 60 - Plague and Microbiology in Brazil with Matheus Duarte 1:01:44

1+ y ago1:01:44

1:01:44

Matheus Duarte (University of St. Andrews) comes on the podcast to talk to Merle and Lee about his work on turn of the 20th century plague in Brazil and its impact on creating the field of microbiology. After a brief introduction to disease history in Brazil at the time, Matheus discusses the impact and immediate non-medical responses to the plague…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 59 - COVID Calls with Scott Knowles 1:06:37

1+ y ago1:06:37

1:06:37

Scott Gabriel Knowles (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) joins Merle and Lee to talk about his daily show since March 2020, Covid Calls. Scott begins by providing background to his show, the guests he has had on, and his audience’s responses to the show. He then discusses some of the broad themes he has learned during his 269 show…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 58 - Carolingian Medicine with Meg Leja 55:51

2y ago55:51

55:51

Meg Leja (SUNY Binghamton) joins Merle and Lee to discuss her work on early medieval medicine and the Carolingians. Meg begins the conversation by situating the Carolingians historically and explaining why they have been written out of the “standard” story of history of medicine. She continues by discussing how the Carolingians thought about health…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 57 - Historical Epidemiology with Jim Webb 1:10:50

2y ago1:10:50

1:10:50

Jim Webb (Colby College) comes on the podcast to talk to Merle and Lee about his work in historical epidemiology and how its multidisciplinary approach could transform how we teach and research diseases. After first defining what historical epidemiology is and why it is a difficult field in which to do research, Jim gives examples of how he approac…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 56 - Historical Demography of Infectious Diseases, Policy and Outreach with Svenn-Erik Mamelund 1:20:31

2y ago1:20:31

1:20:31

Svenn-Erik Mamelund (OsloMet) joins Merle and Lee to discuss his work. The first part of the interview focuses on Svenn-Erik’s research as a historical demographer focusing on the 1918 influenza pandemic, and he shares some of the findings about the differential effects of the pandemic on certain groups in the population. In the second half, the co…

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Research on the Rocks

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Episode 4 - All You Need Is Maths feat. Caoimhe Rooney & Jessica Williams (Mathematigals) 1:04:15

2y ago1:04:15

1:04:15

It's time to get mathematical, with two special guests from the world of applied mathematics! Dr Caoimhe Rooney is a research fellow at NASA Ames Research Centre who uses maths to study exoplanets with the goal of understanding how they formed, what they're made of and ultimately if they could harbor life. Dr Jessica Williams is a postdoctoral rese…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 55 - Polio in Hungary and the End of Epidemics with Dora Vargha 1:06:09

2y ago1:06:09

1:06:09

Dora Vargha (University of Exeter) talks to Merle and Lee about her work on polio epidemics after World War Two in Hungary. After unpacking the basic information on polio’s longer history, Dora discusses how polio struck Hungary during the 1950s and the way in which vaccines were introduced that stopped the epidemics by the 1960s. She uses polio as…

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Infectious Historians

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Episode 54 - Alexandre Yersin with Michael Vann 1:15:58

2y ago1:15:58

1:15:58

Michael Vann (California State University, Sacramento) returns to the Infectious Historians (our first returning guest!), this time to focus on the biography of Alexandre Yersin, the Swiss-French doctor who discovered the bacterium that causes plague. The discussion covers Yersin’s biography from childhood, through his move to southeast Asia, his s…

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