Latest Culturalhistory Podcast Episodes

RTBS 02 03 "COVID-19: Rhetorics of Infection, Resources of Resistance"

Remains to be Seen - April 29, 2020 20:48 - 59 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, we join forces with Pitt’s Center for Bioethics & Health Law to present a special Medical Humanities Mondays panel discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic.  Mari Webel of Pitt’s Department of History, Lisa S. Parker  of the Center for Bioethics & Health Law, and our own Jake Dechant...

RTBS 02 02 "Do not open that airlock: Notes from the COVID-19 Bunker”

Remains to be Seen - March 28, 2020 19:04 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this special gonzo episode, Emma, Jake, and Jeff broadcast on improvised equipment from their respective pandemic shelters as the COVID-19 crisis expands faster than any one person can appreciate.  We race escalating morbidity and Emma’s dwindling laptop battery as we tackle issues social and...

RTBS 02 01 "Voyage of the Damned: A Cruise through the Coronavirus Epidemic"

Remains to be Seen - March 15, 2020 21:31 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, we delve accurately if irreverently into the Covid-19 epidemic.  It’s everything you’ve always wanted to know (and probably a few things you didn’t) about how viruses reproduce, or where they hide when they’re not causing us trouble.  Along the way, we misidentify the inventor o...

RTBS 01 08 “Of Medical Flesh and Blood Libel: The Polish ‘Cadaver Affair,’ Medical Education, and Inter-War Anti-Semitism”

Remains to be Seen - October 25, 2019 01:28 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, Natalia Aleksiun, Professor of Modern Jewish History at Touro College, joins us in the studio to discuss her work on Jewish medical students in Central Europe between the world wars.  In Poland and elsewhere, nationalist medical students under the rallying cry “Christian Bodies ...

RTBS 01 07 “Plasticize Me: You Too Can Exhibit Human Remains for Entertainment and Profit”

Remains to be Seen - August 01, 2019 01:57 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, your hosts turn their scalpels on the strange and ethically-murky world of human body exhibitions. We discuss Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist who perfected techniques of plastination, a method of preservation that he later applied to whole human cadavers in his exhibiti...

RTBS 01 06: “The Fox and the Hound: Co-Evolving with our Furry Friends”

Remains to be Seen - July 24, 2019 02:29 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, we sniff into the strange territory of domestication and co-evolution with our special guest Anne Burrows, Professor of Anatomy at Duquesne University and a member of the research team making big news this summer for their work on the evolution of facial expression in domestic d...

RTBS 01 05: “The Needle Has Landed: Vaccine Science and Anti-Vaccine Activism, Past and Present.”

Remains to be Seen - June 19, 2019 01:38 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
As vaccine fever runs high, UHC Brackenridge fellow Lo Reese joins Emma, Jake, and Jeff in the studio for a discussion about vaccines and the people who fear them, from the early days of smallpox vaccination to the present day of discredited anti-vaccine “experts” and “conspiracy cruises.”  In a...

RTBS 01 04 "Missing, Presumed Dead: Dirty Secrets from the History of the Trade in Human Cadavers"

Remains to be Seen - June 01, 2019 15:11 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, we dig deeply into the troubling history of obtaining human bodies for anatomical dissection and medical education.  From disappearing parents to New York Riots to companies that offer body parts for rent, we can guarantee a fascinating though sometimes morbid excursion through ...

RTBS 01 03 "69 and Us: The Strange World of Commercial Genetic Testing"

Remains to be Seen - May 03, 2019 22:26 - 59 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, Jake, Emma, and Jeff poke their instruments into the brave new world of commercial genetic testing.  In a time when the swab of a cheek can reveal many things--some welcome, some not--we encounter crime, romantic disappointments, bogus diagnoses, and some very naughty doctors, w...

RTBS 01 02 "The Human Side of Sideshow: Performing Prodigies and Unusual Bodies from Barnum to Brighton Beach"

Remains to be Seen - April 22, 2019 01:39 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
Emma, Jake, and Jeff talk about people with unusual, non-normative, or prodigious bodies who took their gifts on the road, performing before delighted, titillated (and sometimes shocked) audiences.  Historical figures discussed include Charles Sherwood Stratton a.k.a. "General Tom Thumb,"  The H...

RTBS 01 01 "Summer of the Pacemakers: From Cadavers to Medical Museums"

Remains to be Seen - April 14, 2019 15:49 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratings
In this episode, Emma, Jake, and Jeff talk about their experiences in working with human remains in the anatomy lab, as well as their own medical implants, visits to medical museums, and bodies that explode while being cremated.