David DiValerio, associate professor of religious studies and history at UWM, complicates our exploration of loneliness and isolation with some details from his research on the long-term meditative retreat in Tibetan Buddhism.

Ahead of our book launch event on February 23, 2022, historian Nigel Rothfels gives a sneak peak of his newest book Elephant Trails. Rothfels also gave us some connecting threads between his research findings and ways we might think about our Lonely No More! program in the context of animal history and our upcoming Nonhuman Kinship Roundtable.

Considering our dog and cat companions, relationships with animals may help alleviate loneliness. But what of robot pets? Sonia Zhang's work focuses on how social roboticists approach issues of loneliness as a health issue, adding more fodder to the Lonely No More! discussion.

C21's Lonely No More! Symposia title is inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slapstick. UWM's Peter Sands, an expert in American literature, gives some insight into the significance of this novel for our current moments.

In this first episode of C21's newest mini-podcast series, UWM's Colleen Galambos provides some context to the latest national research on loneliness as a public health matter in the United States. Galambos's interview jumpstarts C21's Lonely No More! Symposia for the Spring 2022 semester.