Nerds in the Woods: Recent Episodes
National Humanities Center
A series of virtual audio journeys through the intellectual woods, surveying some of the compelling topics being studied by historians and philosophers, scholars of literature, art, and other fields who come to the National Humanities Center from all over the world.
A Crisis of Caring, Part 1Can humanistic methods help us to address new and ongoing issues in medicine today? How do academic perspectives on this issue compare to the recommendations of caregivers actively working in medical settings? Episode host: Meredith Graham. Interviewers: Meredith Graham, Kevin Gomez-Gonzalez, and Mike Levine. Interviewees: stef m. shuster, assistant professor of sociology, Michigan State University; Jeremy A. Greene, Director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Lacrecia Bell, clinical nurse educator and clinical associate, Duke University School of Nursing.https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/crisis-of-caring-humanities-and-our-health/
A Crisis of Caring, Part 2Artist Christine Holton talks through her methods and goals in creating art, including “making without a plan.” Her Corpus Chromatic series of paintings presents individual organs and bodily systems in vivid, stylized detail, helping us to reflect on the emotional connections we have with elements of our physical selves. Episode host and interviewer: Meredith Graham. Interviewee: Christine Holton.Content warning: this episode includes discussions of disordered eating, alcoholism, and chronic illness.Image: Christine Holton, “Unhurt”https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/crisis-of-caring-humanities-and-our-health/
Artificial intelligence challenges us to reconsider the powerful influence technologies have in our lives, the distinctions we make between human beings and machines, and to think carefully about how to deploy AI in ways that benefit humanity, reduce negative societal and environmental impacts, and encouraging human flourishing. Episode host: Brooke Andrade. Interviewer: Robert D. Newman. Interviewees: Paul Alivisatos, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, Samsung Distinguished Professor of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, University of California, Berkeley; Tobias Rees, Reid Hoffman Professor at The New School of Social Research and Director of the Berggruen Institute; Abby Smith Rumsey, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; and Şerife (Sherry) Wong, Artist, Icarus Salon and Researcher at the Berggruen Institute.
Alan Turing famously asked, can computers think? But can computers also feel? Can machines be designed to include a moral compass? Or, do machines always include the (often unexamined) moral assumptions of their designers? Episode host: Brooke Andrade. Interviewer: Robert D. Newman. Interviewees: Meredith Broussard, associate professor of data journalism, New York University; Chetan Dube, CEO, IPsoft; David Theo Goldberg, Director, University of California Humanities Research Institute; and Elizabeth Langland, Director, Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, Arizona State University.
This episode takes us on an intellectual voyage through the Caribbean, exploring its historical, political, and cultural importance over the course of the past several centuries. Episode host: Tania Munz. Interviewer: Robert Newman. Interviewees: Rebecca Goetz (Fellow, 2018–19), Marlene Daut (Fellow, 2016–17), and Matthew Smith (Fellow, 2018–19).
In this episode, we sit down with two scholars whose work complicates our understanding of black power politics and the scope of its influence outside of the U.S. cities with which it is most often associated. Episode host: Matthew Booker. Interviewer: Robert Newman. Interviewees: Jakobi Williams (Fellow, 2016–17) and Katherine Mellen Charron (Fellow, 2019–20).
In this episode of Nerds in the Woods, we talk with three scholars about how form and function work together, investing objects with meaning and resonance in our lives, whether in art and architecture, literary forms, or the stuff of everyday life. Episode host: Robert Newman. Interviewers: Robert Newman, Joan Hinde Stewart, and Tania Munz. Interviewees: Hollis Robbins (Fellow, 2017–18), Sonja Drimmer (Fellow, 2019–20), and Elizabeth Otto (Fellow, 2017–18).
This episode invites us to think more deeply about the practice of reading by reflecting on the experiences of neurodivergent readers, exploring the bonds created among devotees of a favorite author’s work, and by considering insights made possible by computer-assisted reading. Episode host: Matthew Booker. Interviewer: Robert Newman. Interviewees: Matthew Rubery (Fellow, 2018–19), Ann Weirda Rowland (Fellow, 2019–20), and Ted Underwood (Fellow, 2018–19).
This episode explores the relationship between literature and music across time, specifically during the Italian Renaissance and in late twentieth-century America, and across and among genres, poetry and literary prose, ballads, rock music, and hip hop. Episode host: Matthew Booker. Interviewer: Robert Newman. Interviewees: Blake Wilson (Fellow 2016–17), Florence Dore (Fellow, 2008–09; 2016–17), and Professor A.D. Carson from the University of Virginia.
This episode explores how understanding the ways that humans interact with their environments, both locally and globally, can help us confront contemporary ecological challenges. Episode host: Robert Newman. Interviewers: Robert Newman and Tania Munz. Interviewees: photographer Justin Cook, Joni Adamson (Fellow, 2018–19; 2016–17), and Stephanie Foote (Fellow, 2017–18).