Artist Rene Gómez creates street art as part of an August 2020 community street painting day sponsored by Rhode Island Latino Arts. One of many items shared with the Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive. Photo by Marta Martinez.
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 Year, which has been collecting stories and digital artifacts of the past twelve months.
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 comprehend how community events and the stories we tell each other can make society more connected and compassionate.
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 more visible, but available for students and researchers to study in entirely new ways. Julia Flanders and Sarah Connell, Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of The Women Writers Project.
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 of the biggest names in pop music. Those interviews were condensed for the newspaper, but now the tapes of his original interviews have been donated to the Northeastern University Library’s Archives and Special Collections, offering an exciting and rare glimpse into music history.
Young Researchers on the Environment, Energy, and Cancer
Jan 19, 2021
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 restored oyster reefs affects the ecology around them; and Hajar Owji on the “Optimization of Bioethanol Production in Colza,” otherwise known as canola oil.
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 how much of what happened was recorded in new forms of data, and visualized in ways that affected public opinion and health and economic policy. This panel consisted Joanna Radin, an associate professor of history and the history of medicine at Yale, and Dan Bouk, an associate professor of history and university studies at Colgate. A big thanks to Sari Altschuler and Chris Parsons for organizing the panel, hosted by the Humanities Center and the Health, Humanities, and Society initiative at Northeastern University. This panel was Sponsored by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for the Digital Health Humanities.
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 with stories about successfully navigating this passage. This first-ever podcast crossover features the hosts of the [I’M]Possible podcast.
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 mass media that existed decades ago. To help us understand the radically remade world of news, we’re joined by Meg Heckman, who worked in local news for over a decade as a reporter and digital editor, and who is now an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern and the author of Political Godmother: Nackey Scripps Loeb and the Newspaper That Shook the Republican Party.
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 colonialism, capitalism, and once-distant cultures. On this episode, Jonathan Kaufman discusses his new book, The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties that Helped Create Modern China. Professor Kaufman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author, and Director of the Northeastern University School of Journalism.
The World Health Organization and Pandemics
Oct 13, 2020
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 Health Organization does, and what its role is during crises like the coronavirus. Summer Marion, a research fellow at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and a PhD candidate in political science at Northeastern University, helps us understand the role of the World Health Organization in relation to global health.
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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 
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 more visible, but available for students and researchers to study in entirely new ways. Julia Flanders and Sarah Connell, Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of 
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, 
Our first episode of 2021 features the winners of the Three-Minute Thesis Contest at Northeastern University, sponsored by the 
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 how much of what happened was recorded in new forms of data, and visualized in ways that affected public opinion and health and economic policy. This panel consisted ![[I'm] Possible Podcast Header](https://whatsnewpodcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Identity-and-Self-Confidence-Episode-Art-300x169.jpg)
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 with stories about successfully navigating this passage. This first-ever podcast crossover features the hosts of the 
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 mass media that existed decades ago. To help us understand the radically remade world of news, we’re joined by 
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 colonialism, capitalism, and once-distant cultures. On this episode, 
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 Health Organization does, and what its role is during crises like the coronavirus. 
