Public Intellectual

BU Professor Ashley Mears details the leisure of the wealthy in her new book, Very Important People, but also the men and "girls" who live in their periphery. Examining the nightlife of the moneyed, from the ecstatic destruction of wealth to the exclusive locales they circulate around, we discuss the gender of money and why being "chosen" will always feel good.

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With all the media struggles lately, a conversation has emerged: should the journalist strive to be an objective observer, or should they be the moral arbiter? Who better to come on to help Jessa figure this out than JoAnn Wypijewski, who has been covering media moral panics for years? Author of the new collection of essays and reporting What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About MeToo, we discuss this tricky new media landscape.

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Somehow, the conversation around historical racism and bigotry and police brutality turned into a series of... resignations by white voice actors in cartoons? Yes, we're talking about representation in film yet again, and Vincent Chabany-Douarre, creator of the new Katharine's Kapital project, comes on to discuss what Depression-era films have to teach us, and why watching Katharine Hepburn films is praxis.

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While many cities and states offered protection from evictions during the beginning months of the pandemic, many of those protections have expired and people are losing their houses. Tara Raghuveer of KC Tenants speaks to Jessa about making housing the central issue for all local government, about the tenant bill of rights, and the spitefulness of landlords.

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I know, we're all against voting and progress through elections right now, but the triumph of Brandon Scott over Sheila Dixon and assorted other neoliberal powerbrokers in Baltimore is potentially significant. I'm re-releasing the conversation I had with Brandon Scott before he announced he was running for mayor, about trying to turn leftist rhetoric and idealism into real policy in a troubled city.

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What does a fully inclusive city look like? With issues like policing, housing, child care, surveillance, and education in the news, due to the uprising and the pandemic, Leslie Kern and I consider what a city that is built for the use of all people -- not just the professional class -- could look like.

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Frank A von Hippel takes us through the surprising relationship of disease and war, from how the treatment of malaria facilitated colonialism, how weapons against disease carrying pests were used against human beings in war and riot, the development of tear gas, and the coming insect apocalypse.

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Excuse the click-baity title. Caren Beilin had a copper IUD implanted, and was overwhelmed with health issues almost immediately. Six days later, the IUD was removed, but the damage, including the sparking of an autoimmune disorder, was done. Many women report similar serious problems, yet this information is very hard to come by in the consultation room. Beilin joins Jessa to talk about medicine's women problem, but also medicine's general sickness problem, and why disorders that affect certain populations -- like women, or black people -- are understudied and disbelieved.

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Alec Ryrie, the author of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt, joins Jessa to discuss how faith and doubt operate together, skepticism as a contagion, and the legacy of the New Atheists.

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Ben Lerner's The Topeka School was recently shortlisted for the Pulitzer, and critics have been raving about its insight into Trump Country. But... how good is it? Christopher Piatt and Jessa, two former small town, rural Kansans, read the Topeka School and discuss all of its hot takes on red state culture, its shallow research on the deep weirdness of Kansas, and why it is no longer expected for Kansans to be the audience, let alone the creators, of art these days.

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