Hold That Thought

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 public health? By helping to develop the Arts for Behavior Change (ABC) program in Lima, Peru, Boston University music professor André de Quadros sought to answer these questions. In his research, teaching, and performances around the world, de Quadros emphasizes using the arts for social change. He spent time with the music department at Washington University in fall 2014 as part of the Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program. This podcast first aired in January 2015.

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 Nazi party. Historian Corinna Treitel shares the story of the Nazis' obsession with natural foods, and discusses how their ideas about nutrition compare with how we think about food and health today.

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 supposed to provide care for sufferers. She also shares her hope for the future of eating disorder treatment and advice for those who want to help.

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 are some screening and treatment options recommended over others? When and how do values enter the picture? In this episode, Plutynski shares her story, her opinions on ongoing debates over breast cancer screening, and ideas from her forthcoming book Explaining Cancer: Philosophical Issues in Cancer Causation, Evidence & Explanation.

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, he studies the cultural history of pain, and specifically how representations and even the experience of pain have changed over time. Equal parts philosophy and history, Moscoso invites us to see pain as a social experience that comes with moral and ethical dimensions as well.

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 of gruesome wax anatomical models. Our guide is Rebecca Messbarger, a professor of Italian and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and director of the Medical Humanities minor at Washington University in St. Louis. In this episode from 2014, Messbarger explains how La Specola and its wax inhabitants helped set the course for a new Enlightenment era, and how one figure, the Venus, became central to this new regime of the human body.

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 theory and practice for centuries. Luis Salas studies Greek and Roman medicine and philosophy, in particular the works of Galen. Here, Salas shares a fascinating and revealing story about Galen, his rivals, and the heart of an elephant.

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 ineffable quality of art, the thing too great to be expressed in words, or as a musical score, or even with paint or clay, but that is felt nonetheless. Call it what you will, David wrestles with the unnamable and calls upon other writers and artists who have shared his fascination with the Void.

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 to overcome and use shame to help the creative process.

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 the suicide of her younger brother. She considers how writing the book affected her grieving process and chronicles her family's surprising reaction to the book.

This interview was first released in the summer of 2014 as "Family Histories."