Hold That Thought

By Washington University in St. Louis

Society & Culture Arts Natural Sciences Science & Medicine Literature History Philosophy Social Sciences

What's Hold That Thought about?

Hold That Thought brings you research and ideas from Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout the year we select a few topics to explore and then bring together thoughtful commentary on those topics from a variety of experts and sources. Be sure to subscribe!

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Hold That Thought episodes:

10.17.2019
Mud cores, rain gauges, and the hunt for climate data
Climate scientist Bronwen Konecky travels to tropical regions around the world gathering evidence of the geologic past. Using data from rain samples and sediments deep at the bottom of lakes, she is piecing together a story about Earth's climatic history...
03.29.2019
Reading revelation
Religious studies scholars Elaine Pagels and Laurie Maffly-Kipp discuss the Book of Revelation and how it has been interpreted across time, as well as the personal side of their writing and research.
01.31.2019
Diva Nation
Rebecca Copeland and Laura Miller, coeditors of "Diva Nation: Female Icons from Japanese Cultural History," discuss queens, goddesses, and the nature of “diva-hood.”
10.25.2018
How good is the US economy, really?
Ahead of the midterm elections, Steve Fazzari explores the current state of the economy and explains why widely cited unemployment and growth numbers don't give a full picture.
09.27.2018
Materials through the ages
Over thousands of years, by trial and error, humankind has learned how to produce superior materials for different types of processing. Physicist Ken Kelton talks about materials through the ages.
06.25.2018
The Southwick Broadside
This Fourth of July, visitors to Washington University's Olin Library will have the chance to see a rare piece of history - an early copy of the Declaration of Independence known as the Southwick Broadside. Historian David Konig and curator...
06.04.2018
Saint Peter, According to Mark
The apostle Peter was a leader and role model in early Christianity - or was he? According to Lance Jenott, a lecturer of classics and religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis, how we understand Peter depends on who...
03.01.2018
The Secret Lives of Plants
Biologist Elizabeth Haswell wants to change the way that people think about plants. What do we know about how plants sense their environment, and what remains a mystery? The answers may surprise you. Haswell teaches biology at Washington University in...
02.13.2018
Frog love and the decoy effect
This Valentine's Day, we bring you a story of frog romance and economics - with a side of math and 1960s game shows. Which mate will the frog bachelorette choose, and how does her choice relate to human decision-making? Economist...
01.22.2018
Becoming a Biotech Explorer
A competition for a million-dollar grant leads biologist Joe Jez to creative an innovative program for first-year and sophomore students.
12.19.2017
Amazing Creatures: Cyanobacteria
Biologist Himadri Pakrasi, director of Washington University's International Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability, has been studying tiny creatures called cyanobacteria for more than 25 years. He shares what we know about cyanobacteria, and how they may hold clues to...
11.16.2017
Would you be my neighbor?
Using survey data, sociologist Ariela Schachter has investigated how Americans think about race, immigration status, assimilation, and what it means to be ‘similar.’ She discusses her process and findings.
10.26.2017
How to Create a Musical Monster
It’s been 200 years since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, the classic tale of creation gone wrong. In honor of the novel’s anniversary – and just in time for Halloween – three undergraduates at Washington University in St. Louis were each...
10.11.2017
Ira Flatow on Climate Change and Science Communication
Ira Flatow, host of public radio's Science Friday, describes how and why conversations about global warming have changed over time. Flatow visited Washington University in St. Louis as part of Arts & Sciences' new "Science Matters" lecture series.
09.28.2017
Creators and Copycats: The Business of Fashion in Guatemala
In an indigenous Maya community in highland Guatemala, sociocultural anthropologist Kedron Thomas noticed a trend. Despite companies' increased efforts to protect their brands against "piracy," knock-off clothing fashion was everywhere. In her book Regulating Style: Intellectual Property Law and the Business...
09.06.2017
Moms at Work: Policies and Perspectives in Europe and the US
Sociologist Caitlyn Collins frequently remembers a familiar phrase from her childhood. Collins’ mom, a successful sales director, often said with a sigh: “If we were in Europe, this would be so much easier!” So, was Collins’ mom correct? Are the...
07.26.2017
How to Sit on the Iron Throne: Power and Violence in "Game of Thrones" and History
Rival families fight for the throne by racking up the body count through political maneuvers, murders, battles, and betrayals. This summation is true as much for the hit HBO series "Game of Thrones" as it is for history, specifically the...
04.28.2017
Charter School Myths
Do charter schools perform better than traditional public schools? Does competition between schools really help students? Ebony Duncan Shippy, a sociologist of education at Washington University in St. Louis, breaks down some common myths about charter schools and offers her...
04.20.2017
High-School Students Should Study Earth Science. Here's Why.
Ever wonder why some subjects are taught in high school while others are not, or why students spend so much time memorizing facts? According to geophysicist Michael Wysession, science curricula in the US are based on standards that are more...
04.06.2017
Making Sense of Klansville
During the civil rights era, North Carolina was home to more dues-paying Klan members than the rest of the South combined. When conducting research on this chapter of history for his acclaimed book Klansville, USA, sociologist David Cunningham encountered the...
03.23.2017
Mapping Asthma: The Geography of Inequality
Kelly Harris, a doctoral student in education, uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to identify ‘hotspots’ of childhood asthma in St. Louis. Higher asthma rates are linked with lower income levels, and Harris wants to understand why. Through data, she seeks...
03.08.2017
Right to Work? Unions & Income Inequality
Over the past three decades in the United States, the wealth gap between the richest Americans and everyone else has reached new extremes. At the same time, labor union membership has drastically decreased. In his book What Unions No Longer...
02.23.2017
Inequality at Work
In her book No More Invisible Man: Race and Gender in Men’s Work, sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield documents the pervasive and often subtle ways that successful black men – people like doctors, lawyers, and engineers – continue to face inequality...
02.16.2017
The Legal Mind of Thomas Jefferson
Before becoming the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was a successful lawyer in Virginia. His legal training influenced the way he thought about government and politics, yet this earlier part of his career has largely been...
02.08.2017
Love Music Across Time
From today's top 100 Billboard songs to ancient Sumerian scripts, human beings have always sung about love. So how have love songs changed across the ages? Have they evolved to reflect society's understandings of love? Or have we been singing...
02.02.2017
Good Gaucho Gone Bad: The Creole Drama
In the 1880s, a new kind of performance became the craze in Argentina and Uruguay. These wild "Creole dramas" glorified country life and the occasionally violent exploits of gauchos, or Argentinian cowboys. In addition to being hugely fun to watch,...
01.26.2017
Staging the Blues: The Ma Rainey Story
Before film or even audio recordings, audiences across the south flocked to traveling tent shows for entertainment. Under these tents, female performers like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey helped invent and popularize a new type of music: the blues. Paige McGinley, author...
01.19.2017
Performing Emotion: Freemasons and the Theater of Ritual
Hundreds of years ago in France, a group of men set up dramatic lighting, put on costumes, read scripts, and acted out a dramatic story. Despite all these elements of the theater, the men were not performing for an audience...
12.15.2016
Performing Gold: Fanny Kemble, Modern Banking, and the Evolution of Acting
When actress Fanny Kemble took the stage in 1831 as Bianca, the pure and mistreated wife in Henry Milman's play Fazio, she astounded audiences with her true-to-life portrayal of jealousy and grief. Julia Walker, associate professor of drama and English...
12.08.2016
Who Should Sing 'Ol' Man River'?
What can one Broadway tune reveal about the history of American race relations? In his book "Who Should Sing Ol' Man River?: The Lives of an American Song," musicologist Todd Decker explores how the meaning of "Ol' Man River" has...
12.02.2016
Metabolism: The Google Maps of Cancer Research
When you hear the word "metabolism," what do you think about? Thanks to the groundbreaking work of chemist Gary Patti here at Washington University in St. Louis, instead of diet or weight loss, we think: "possible cure for cancer." Patti...
11.23.2016
Pilgrim Fathers, How The Thanksgiving We Know And Love Was Manufactured
Thanksgiving is a day most Americans look forward to, a day of watching parades and feasting on delicious food with friends and family. However, the rosy picture we have in our minds of our Pilgrim forefathers sitting down to eat...
11.14.2016
A Chemist's Quest for New Antibiotics
Remember the last time you were sick and your doctor gave you antibiotics? What might have happened if those drugs didn't work? As antibiotic-resistant bacteria spread around the world, this scenario is much more than a "what if." The World...
11.03.2016
Social Citizens: How Peer Networks Influence Elections
When you walk into a voting booth in less than a week to vote for the future president of the United States, you'll be all by yourself making a very personal decision - right? Betsy Sinclair, a political scientist at...
10.26.2016
"Do You Like Scary Movies?" Horror Films & Things That Make Us Scream
Horror movies have been drawing audiences since the earliest days of film. But why are we drawn to fictional portrayals of events that we'd do anything to avoid in real life? And are we frightened by the same things we...
10.19.2016
Slavery at Sea
In her new book Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage, historian Sowande' Mustakeem reveals the forgotten world of 18th century slave ships. Here, she shares the tragic story of one enslaved woman and discusses why...
10.13.2016
The Hidden History of Trumpism
In a recent article in the Guardian, postdoctoral fellow Tim Shenk argues that Donald Trump's rise within the Republican Party has historical - and often overlooked - roots. From an obscure online journal to a best-selling book from 1941 and...
10.05.2016
A Laboratory for the Social Sciences: The American Panel Survey
What does the average American voter really think about the 2016 presidential candidates? How much do those beliefs depend on things like income, education level, or even personality? With the American Panel Survey (or TAPS), social scientists have a powerful...
09.29.2016
How to Forecast an Election
It's about six weeks until the 2016 US presidential election, and everyone wants to know: Who will win? Hillary Clinton? Or Donald Trump? To attempt to answer this question, political scientists like Jacob Montgomery build complex forecasting models. Montgomery shares...
09.22.2016
Milk at Altitude: Exploring Health in the Himalayas
Scientists agree that breast milk is good for babies, but E.A. Quinn believes there's a lot more to learn. Join Quinn on a recent research trip to a remote valley in Nepal, where she works with community partners to understand...
09.15.2016
Theater for Health
According to some estimates, just 6 percent of mothers in Peru wash their hands before preparing food. Is it possible that theater could help change this statistic? Art can surely offer personal comfort and emotional healing, but can it influence...
09.07.2016
Eating Organic in Nazi Germany
Eat plenty of raw vegetables. Avoid preservatives. Breads should be whole grain. These may sounds like words of advice from your local natural foods store, but starting in the 1930s, the same messages were systematically spread throughout Germany by the...
08.31.2016
Breaking Down Persistent Myths About Eating Disorders
Treated for her first eating disorder at 11, Rebecca Lester, now in recovery, studies these conditions as an anthropologist and psychotherapist. She breaks down the most persistent eating disorder myths that pervade popular culture and the very system that is...
08.24.2016
The Philosophy of Cancer
In 2009, Anya Plutynski - a historian and philosopher of biology - was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite all of her experience with scientific research, Plutynski struggled to fully understand her disease. How do scientists and doctors define cancer? Why...
08.17.2016
Pain: A Cultural History
When we think about pain, most of us think of doctors or medicine, but Javier Moscoso has a different perspective. As a professor of history and philosophy of science at the Institute of History at the Spanish National Research Council,...
08.10.2016
Venus, Deconstructed
As a follow-up to last week's episode with Luis Salas on the ancient history of medicine and anatomy, we're reaching into the archives to share the story of story of one museum, La Specola, and its infamous 18th century exhibit...
08.03.2016
Galen and the Elephant's Heart
What can an ancient debate about an elephant tell us about the history of medicine? To find out, step into the life and times of Galen of Pergamum. Though his name is not commonly recognized today, Galen's writings influenced medical...
07.27.2016
The Non-sense of Art
For a while now, David Schuman, a fiction writer and the director of the Creative Writing MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis, has been interested in--what he calls--"the Void." The Void can also be thought of as the...
07.20.2016
Shame: Friend or Enemy?
For some artists, shame motivates them write the next page. Others become paralyzed by it. Today, Stefan Merrill Block, the author of The Story of Forgetting, shares his earliest encounter with artistic shame. He also gives his advice on how...
07.13.2016
Grief and Memoir: Writing about the Tough Stuff
Today, we consider the memoir. Kathleen Finneran, a writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis, talks about her memoir "The Tender Land: A Family Love Story," which focuses on her family and how their lives were altered by...

What's Hold That Thought about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Hold That Thought episodes:

Mud cores, rain gauges, and the hunt for climate data

Reading revelation

Diva Nation

How good is the US economy, really?

Materials through the ages

The Southwick Broadside

Saint Peter, According to Mark

The Secret Lives of Plants

Frog love and the decoy effect

Becoming a Biotech Explorer

Amazing Creatures: Cyanobacteria

Would you be my neighbor?

How to Create a Musical Monster

Ira Flatow on Climate Change and Science Communication

Creators and Copycats: The Business of Fashion in Guatemala

Moms at Work: Policies and Perspectives in Europe and the US

How to Sit on the Iron Throne: Power and Violence in "Game of Thrones" and History

Charter School Myths

High-School Students Should Study Earth Science. Here's Why.

Making Sense of Klansville

Mapping Asthma: The Geography of Inequality

Right to Work? Unions & Income Inequality

Inequality at Work

The Legal Mind of Thomas Jefferson

Love Music Across Time

Good Gaucho Gone Bad: The Creole Drama

Staging the Blues: The Ma Rainey Story

Performing Emotion: Freemasons and the Theater of Ritual

Performing Gold: Fanny Kemble, Modern Banking, and the Evolution of Acting

Who Should Sing 'Ol' Man River'?

Metabolism: The Google Maps of Cancer Research

Pilgrim Fathers, How The Thanksgiving We Know And Love Was Manufactured

A Chemist's Quest for New Antibiotics

Social Citizens: How Peer Networks Influence Elections

"Do You Like Scary Movies?" Horror Films & Things That Make Us Scream

Slavery at Sea

The Hidden History of Trumpism

A Laboratory for the Social Sciences: The American Panel Survey

How to Forecast an Election

Milk at Altitude: Exploring Health in the Himalayas

Theater for Health

Eating Organic in Nazi Germany

Breaking Down Persistent Myths About Eating Disorders

The Philosophy of Cancer

Pain: A Cultural History

Venus, Deconstructed

Galen and the Elephant's Heart

The Non-sense of Art

Shame: Friend or Enemy?

Grief and Memoir: Writing about the Tough Stuff