Think from KERA

They were the perfect family, until illness took the children, one by one. Robert Kolker joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the Galvin family, which saw schizophrenia take over six of 12 kids – drawing interest from the National Institute of Mental Health. His book is called “Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family.” 

A side effect of the coronavirus is a rotten economy. So what can a century-old pandemic tell us about how long the downturn will last? Stanford professor Walter Scheidel joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how the 1918 flu took many lives but in the end spared the economy. His article published in Foreign Affairs is “The Spanish Flu Didn’t Wreck the Global Economy, What Is Different About the Coronavirus Pandemic?”

Television screens of late have been filled with images of peaceful protests – and of violence. What the media choose to cover helps to form public opinion. Omar Wasow, assistant professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton and co-founder of BlackPlanet.com, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about protest tactics that work and why. His paper, published in American Political Science Review, is called “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting.”

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Hard to say – but what we do know is a rose from thousands of years ago probably gave today’s roses their scent. Neil Shubin, Robert R. Bensley Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the evolution of, well … evolution. His new book is called “Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA.”

The British Empire was once the largest in history. Now, with the vote to exit the European Union, it becomes an island alone. David Reynolds, professor of international history at Christ’s College, Cambridge and fellow of the British Academy, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about Brexit in this historical context. His book is “Island Stories: An Unconventional History of Britain.”

What’s the point of buying a new dress when everyone wears sweatpants and T-shirts to Zoom meetings? And who cares about custom suits anymore? Anne Helen Petersen, senior culture writer for BuzzFeed News, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about a history of American messaging that has always promoted “buy, buy, buy” to buoy the economy, and why that isn’t working now. Her article is“I Don’t Feel Like Buying Stuff Anymore.”

Government response to the pandemic has felt very piecemeal – in part because this is a public health crisis that is playing out very differently depending on where you live. Ed Yong covers health and science for The Atlantic, and he joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the unique challenges of addressing the coronavirus – and about the urgency for local, state and federal governments to figure out ways to coordinate their plans. His article is“We Live in a Patchwork Pandemic Now.”

If a summer blockbuster plays in a theater with no audience, is it really a summer blockbuster? And is piping in crowd noise really ramping up the excitement of a football game? Brent Lang, executive editor of film and media at Variety and Tom Goldman, sports correspondent for NPR, join host Krys Boyd to talk about how studios and sports leagues are scrambling to figure out their next moves as COVID-19 threatens the futures of entertainment.

In major cities across the nation this weekend, people gathered to protest the police killings of black Americans. Peniel Joseph is founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. He joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how these protests resemble demonstrations of the Civil Rights era – and how social media and video footage have changed how people protest. Joseph’s recent book is called“The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.”

One-sixth of all uninsured Americans live in Texas, and the number of uninsured Texas women of reproductive age is even higher. ProPublica reporter Nina Martin joins guest host Courtney Collins to talk about the critical links between maternal mortality and Medicaid and why limited to no access means pregnant and new mothers are dying at an alarming rate. Her article“The Extraordinary Danger of Being Pregnant and Uninsured in Texas,” was co-written with Julia Belluz of Vox.