Black people, and especially Black women, suffer and die from diseases at much higher rates than their white counterparts. The vast majority of these health disparities are not attributed to behavioral differences or biology, but to the pervasive devaluation of Black bodies. Womanist Bioethics: Social Justice, Spirituality, and Black Women’s Health (NYU Press, 2025), by Dr. Wylin D. Wilson, addresses this crisis from a bioethical standpoint. It offers a critique of mainstream bioethics as having embraced the perspective of its mainly white, male progenitors, limiting the extent to which it is positioned to engage the issues that particularly affect vulnerable populations. This book makes the provocative but essential case that because African American women—across almost every health indicator—fare worse than others, we must not only include, but center, Black women’s experiences and voices in bioethics discourse and practice.Womanist Bioethics develops the first specifically womanist form of bioethics, focused on the diverse vulnerabilities and multiple oppressions that women of color face. This innovative womanist bioethics is grounded in the Black Christian prophetic tradition, based on the ideas that God does not condone oppression and that it is imperative to defend those who are vulnerable. It also draws on womanist theology and Black liberation theology, which take similar stances. At its core, the volume offers a new, broad-based approach to bioethics that is meant as a corrective to mainstream bioethics’ privileging of white, particularly male, experiences, and it outlines ways in which hospitals, churches, and the larger community can better respond to the healthcare needs of Black women.Our guest is: Dr. Wylin D. Wilson, who is associate professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School. Her work lies at the intersection of religion, gender, and bioethics. Her academic interests also include rural bioethics and Black church studies. Prior to joining Duke Divinity School in 2020, she was a teaching faculty member at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. She is the theologian-in-residence for the Children's Defense Fund and is a member of the American Academy of Religion’s Bioethics and Religion Program Unit Steering Committee. Among her publications is her book, Economic Ethics and the Black Church.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator and producer of the AcademicLife podcast.Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite progressive policy strides in health care reform, immigrant communities continue to experience stark disparities across the United States. In Not All In: Race, Immigration, and Health Care Exclusion in the Age of Obamacare (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025), Tiffany D. Joseph exposes the insidious contradiction of Massachusetts' advanced health care system and the exclusionary experiences of its immigrant communities.Joseph illustrates how patients' race, ethnicity, and legal status determine their access to health coverage and care services, revealing a disturbing paradox where policy advances and individual experiences drastically diverge. Examining Boston's Brazilian, Dominican, and Salvadoran communities, this book provides an exhaustive analysis spanning nearly a decade to highlight the profound impacts of the Affordable Care Act and subsequent policy shifts on these marginalized groups.Not All In is a critical examination of the systemic barriers that perpetuate health care disparities. Joseph challenges readers to confront the uncomfortable truths about racialized legal status and its profound implications on health care access. This essential book illuminates the complexities of policy implementation and advocates for more inclusive reforms that genuinely cater to all. Urging policymakers, health care providers, and activists to rethink strategies that bridge the gap between legislation and life, this book reminds us that in the realm of health care, being progressive is not synonymous with inclusivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In The Eleventh Plague: Jews and Pandemics from the Bible to COVID-19 (Oxford UP, 2023), Brown investigates the relation between Judaism and infectious diseases throughout the ages, from premodern and early-modern plagues, to rabbinic responses to smallpox and cholera, to the special vulnerabilities Jewish immigrants faced in the US as result of prejudice, and to the curious practice of “Black Weddings” in which two orphans are married in a cemetery and brings us to the modern day with the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic is the first book to document the experiences of those hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City—disabled people. Diverse disability communities across the five boroughs have been disproportionately impacted by city and national policies, work and housing conditions, stigma, racism, and violence—as much as by the virus itself. Disabled and chronically-ill activists have protested plans for medical rationing and refuted the eugenic logic of mainstream politicians and journalists who “reassure” audiences that only older people and those with disabilities continue to die from COVID-19. At the same time, as exemplified by the viral hashtag #DisabledPeopleToldYou, disability expertise has become widely recognized in practices such as accessible remote work and education, quarantine, and distributed networks of support and mutual aid. How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic (NYU Press, 2025) charts the legacies of this “mass disabling event” for uncertain viral futures, exploring the dialectic between disproportionate risk and the creativity of a disability justice response. How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic includes contributions by wide-ranging disability scholars, writers, and activists whose research and lived experiences chronicle the pandemic’s impacts in prisons, migrant detention centers, Chinatown senior centers, hospitals in Queens and the Bronx, working from bed in Brooklyn, subways, schools, housing shelters, social media, and other locations of public and private life. By focusing on New York City over the course of three years, the book reveals key themes of the pandemic, including hierarchies of disability vulnerability, the deployment of disability as a tool of population management, and innovative crip pandemic cultural production. How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic honors those lost, as well as those who survived, by calling for just policies and caring infrastructures, not only in times of crisis but for the long haul.A full transcript of this interview is available at the link hereMara Mills is Associate Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Mills is cofounder of the NYU Center for Disability Studies and coeditor of Crip Authorship: Disability as Method.Harris Kornstein is Assistant Professor of Public and Applied Humanities at the University of Arizona. They have published research and essays in Surveillance & Society, Curriculum Inquiry, Wired, and others.Faye Ginsburg is Kriser Professor of Anthropology at New York University. Ginsburg is cofounder of the NYU Center for Disability Studies and author of Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community and coauthor of Disability Worlds.Rayna Rapp is Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology at New York University, and the author of Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America and coauthor of Disability Worlds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most people think about abortion in the context of the country they live in. In the U.S., abortion fuels debate, elections, and legislation. In China, abortion is often treated as a settled issue. Why and how do abortion attitudes vary across the world? In her new book, Fetal Positions: Understanding Cross-National Public Opinion about Abortion (Oxford UP, 2025), Dr. Amy Adamczyk examines the factors influencing cross-national abortion opinion, rates and individual abortion decisions. She investigates the relationship between attitudes and laws, and explores how personal and national characteristics shape views on abortion. Using large-scale public opinion surveys, interviews from two case study countries, and an analysis of newspaper articles from over 40 countries, she argues that cross-national differences in public opinion can largely be explained based on overall levels of religious belief, economic and educational development, type of government and government history, and gender inequality. The book distinguishes beliefs from behaviors and macro factors from personal characteristics to analyze the forces shaping cross-national abortion rates and personal abortion decisions.Dr. Amy Adamczyk is a sociology professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Her work unravels the religious, cultural and social forces shaping public opinion on controversial issues like abortion, same-sex relations, premarital sex, and marijuana and terrorism. Her many earlier books include, Cross-National Public Opinion about Homosexuality: Examining Attitudes across the Globe (University of California Press 2017).Mentioned: World Values Study (free database) Amy Adamczyk, Brittany Suh, and Lindsay Lerner, “Analysis of the Relationship between Religion, Abortion, and Assisted Reproductive Technology: Insights into Cross-National Public Opinion” (2024) (free access to article) Ronald Inglehart and Wayne E. Baker, “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values” (2000) (free access to article) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Madison’s Notes, we continue our discussion with Stephen Macedo, co-author of In COVID’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us (Princeton UP, 2025). The book examines the institutional failures during the pandemic, including the politicization of science, inconsistent messaging, and the disproportionate impacts of policies.We cover key questions: What did “following the science” mean before COVID-19? Macedo explains that science is inherently uncertain, but this nuance was often lost during the pandemic, leading to unrealistic expectations. He also highlights how poor communication about scientific uncertainty eroded public trust.The conversation addresses contradictory messaging about the origins of COVID-19, with public statements often differing from internal expert discussions. Macedo notes how this disconnect fueled skepticism. He also raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest among health officials and the dangers of concentrating decision-making power in a few unchecked individuals.Macedo discusses the politicization of masking, which overshadowed scientific evidence and deepened divisions. He advises individuals to seek reputable sources, embrace uncertainty, and remain critical of simplistic narratives. Finally, he stresses the importance of accountability, open debate, and a commitment to democratic values like tolerance and truth as essential for navigating future crises.This episode offers a concise yet powerful reflection on the lessons of the pandemic and the need for stronger, more transparent governance. Tune in for the full conversation.Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eco-anxiety. Climate guilt. Pre-traumatic stress disorder. Solastalgia. The study of environmental emotions and related mental health impacts is a rapidly growing field, but most researchers overlook a closely related concern: reproductive anxiety. Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question (U California Press, 2024) is the first comprehensive study of how environmental emotions influence whether, when, and why people today decide to become parents—or not.Jade S. Sasser argues that we can and should continue to create the families we desire, but that doing so equitably will require deep commitments to social, reproductive, and climate justice. Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question presents original research, drawing from in-depth interviews and national survey results that analyze the role of race in environmental emotions and the reproductive plans young people are making as a result. Sasser concludes that climate emotions and climate justice are inseparable, and that culturally appropriate mental and emotional health services are a necessary component to ensure climate justice for vulnerable communities.Books and Resources mentioned in today’s episode: Check out Conceivable Future here Check out Climate Mental Health Network here Check out Climate Psychology Alliance here Check out The Good Grief Network here  Find Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for Cultivating Resilience, Taking Action, and Practicing Hope in the Face of Climate Change by Elizabeth Bechard here Find Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety by Britt Wray here Find A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet by Sarah Jaquette Ray here Dr. Jade S. Sasser is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Gender & Sexuality Studies and Society, Environment, and Health Equity at the University of California, Riverside. Her research explores the relationships between reproductive justice, women’s health, and climate change. She is the author of two books, On Infertile Ground: Population Control and Women’s Rights in the Era of Climate Change (2018, NYU Press), which won the Emory Elliott Book Award, and Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future (2024, UC Press). Dr. Sasser has a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from University of California, Berkeley; an MA in Cultural Anthropology from UC Berkeley; and an MPH in Global Health from Boston University. Her podcast Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question can be found here.Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and is an editor at the New Books Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first part of our two-part conversation on Madison’s Notes, we speak with Frances Lee, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, about her co-authored book In COVID’s Wake (Princeton UP, 2025). The book offers a comprehensive and candid political assessment of how institutions performed during the pandemic. It explores how governments, influenced by Wuhan’s lockdown, deviated from existing pandemic plans, leading to policies that often favored the “laptop class” while leaving essential workers vulnerable. Extended school closures disproportionately affected less-privileged families, and the politicization of science marginalized dissent. Lee and her co-author, Stephen Macedo, argue that future crises must uphold the values of liberal democracy: tolerance, respect for evidence, and a commitment to truth.This discussion dives into key questions raised in the book, including the importance of conducting a post-mortem of the pandemic response. Lee highlighted how polarization in the two-party system complicates evaluations of what worked and what didn’t. We also explored the role of states as “laboratories” for different responses and whether meaningful comparisons can be drawn between them. Lee reflected on why pre-existing pandemic plans were abandoned and how the pandemic strained the public’s trust in media, policy advisors, and academic institutions. The ambiguity of desired policy outcomes, she noted, often hindered rational cost-benefit analysis, further complicating the response.Lee emphasized the value of embracing complexity and ambiguity in conversations about societal and political issues. By examining the pandemic’s lessons, “In COVID’s Wake” challenges readers to consider how we can better prepare for future crises while staying true to democratic principles.Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How epidemic photography during a global pandemic of bubonic plague contributed to the development of modern epidemiology and our concept of the “pandemic.”In Visual Plague: The Emergence of Epidemic Photography (MIT Press, 2022), Christos Lynteris examines the emergence of epidemic photography during the third plague pandemic (1894–1959), a global pandemic of bubonic plague that led to over twelve million deaths. Unlike medical photography, epidemic photography was not exclusively, or even primarily, concerned with exposing the patient's body or medical examinations and operations. Instead, it played a key role in reconceptualizing infectious diseases by visualizing the “pandemic” as a new concept and structure of experience—one that frames and responds to the smallest local outbreak of an infectious disease as an event of global importance and consequence.As the third plague pandemic struck more and more countries, the international circulation of plague photographs in the press generated an unprecedented spectacle of imminent global threat. Nothing contributed to this sense of global interconnectedness, anticipation, and fear more than photography. Exploring the impact of epidemic photography at the time of its emergence, Lynteris highlights its entanglement with colonial politics, epistemologies, and aesthetics, as well as with major shifts in epidemiological thinking and public health practice. He explores the characteristics, uses, and impact of epidemic photography and how it differs from the general corpus of medical photography. The new photography was used not simply to visualize or illustrate a pandemic, but to articulate, respond to, and unsettle key questions of epidemiology and epidemic control, as well as to foster the notion of the “pandemic,” which continues to affect our lives today.Christos Lynteris is Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on the anthropological and historical examination of epidemics with a particular focus on zoonotic diseases, epidemiological epistemology, visual medical culture, and colonial medicine. His regional expertise includes China and Inner Asia.Professor Lynteris holds the first chair in medical anthropology at the University of St Andrews. Focusing on diseases that spread between animals and humans, his research has been foundational in the establishment of the anthropological study of zoonosis. Combining archival and ethnographic research together with visual methods and critical approaches to medical and epidemiological epistemologies, Professor Lynteris's research seeks to understand how specific zoonotic diseases (SARS, COVID-19, plague) and the broader question of zoonosis shape social and multispecies worlds and are in turn shaped by them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian Emine Ö. Evered’s Prohibition in Turkey: Alcohol and the Politics of Identity (University of Texas Press, 2024) investigates the history of alcohol, its consumption, and its proscription as a means to better understand events and agendas of the late Ottoman and early Turkish republican eras. Through a comprehensive examination of archival, literary, popular culture, media, and other sources, it unveils a traditionally overlooked—and even excluded—aspect of human history in a region that many do not associate with intoxicants, inebriation, addiction, and vigorous wet-dry debates.Evered's account uniquely chronicles how the Turko-Islamic Ottoman Empire developed strategies for managing its heterogeneous communities and their varied rights to produce, market, and consume alcohol, or to simply abstain. The first author to reveal this experience’s connections with American Prohibition, she demonstrates how—amid modernization, sectarianism, and imperial decline—drinking practices reflected, shifted, and even prompted many of the changes that were underway and that hastened the empire’s collapse. Ultimately, Evered’s book reveals how Turkey’s alcohol question never went away but repeatedly returns in the present, in matters of popular memory, public space, and political contestation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices