Wellness

Words 2.0

With satellites now enveloping our world, empowering a seemingly infinite suite of options for connecting, we have officially entered a new frontier of communications. In this unexplored wilderness, the rules have yet to be written. Is this new landscape helping or hurting us in the long run? Today’s guest is Carl Whithaus [https://carlwhithaus.com/], noted author and one of the country’s foremost authorities on writing technologies and digital cultures. He joins us to discuss how it’s going so far, where we might go, and what we need to be mindful of as we move ahead.Bio and Publications: Carl Whithaus is the author of Swarms, Viral Writing, and the Local: Rhetorical Dynamics across Networked Publics [https://upittpress.org/books/9780822947950/] (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025) and Teaching and Evaluating Writing in the Age of Computers and High-Stakes Testing (Erlbaum, 2005), and Writing Across Distances and Disciplines (Routledge, 2008). He is the co-editor of three essay collections: Multimodal Literacy and Emerging Genres in Student Compositions (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), Considering Students, Teachers, and Writing Assessment: Volume One, Technical and Political Contexts (University of Colorado Press, 2024), and Considering Students, Teachers, and Writing Assessment: Emerging Theoretical and Pedagogical Practices (University of Colorado Press, 2024).He has held national leadership roles in writing studies, including service on the National Assessment of Educational Progress [https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/] (NAEP) Writing Standards Framework Planning Committee, the NCTE Best Practices for Online Writing Instruction Committee, and the editorial board of Kairos. He was the editor of the Journal of Writing Assessment [https://escholarship.org/uc/jwa] from 2015 to 2025. He has been the principal investigator for Splash! milk science update [https://www.milkgenomics.org/splash/] since 2017, a core researcher with the Wayfinding Project [https://thewayfindingproject.com/about/], and a principal investigator for Peer and AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) [https://writing.ucdavis.edu/pairr], a multi-institutional initiative examining the integration of AI-supported peer review in writing instruction, funded by the California Education Learning Lab [https://calearninglab.org/].His current research projects explore viral and “swarm” writing across networks; wayfinding as a framework for understanding early-career professional writing development; and the rhetorical relationships among claims, evidence, and platforms in scientific and social media writing.

Drugs on War

What are the implications of an intoxicated army? Today’s guest, Adam Zientek, is a historian whose book on the French army’s use of wine during World War I begs answers to new questions about what it means for a government to chemically modify the behavior of its fighting force. Bio: Adam Zientek [https://history.ucdavis.edu/people/adam-zientek] is a historian of modern Europe with a focus on France. He is interested in the social history of war, airpower, the history of military medicine and psychiatry, and the history of alcohol and drugs. Adam's research focuses on the experience of trench-fighting in the First World War — how soldiers mitigated the psychological pressures of fighting by analyzing soldiers’ daily practices and rituals.  Publications:  * Zientek, A. (2024) A Thirst for Wine and War: The Intoxication of French Soldiers on the Western Front (Montreal: McGill Queen's University Press: 2024). * Zientek, A. (2023) "Energizing munitions for the body: The French army's alcohol policy on the Western Front during the Great War," Journal of Modern History 95, 1 (March 2023). * Zientek, A. (2014) “Affective neuroscience and the causes of the mutiny of the French 82nd Infantry Brigade,” Contemporary European History 23, 3, pp. 505-22.

The Global Economy

The world has certainly seen its share of economic crises before. But have we ever seen anything like this? How did we get here? How long might this last? What might it look like on the other side? And what’s with all the tariffs? Today’s guest, noted economist Chris Meissner, shares his insights and expertise on these and other pressing questions. Bio: Christopher M. Meissner [https://economics.ucdavis.edu/people/christopher-meissner], professor of economics, is an authority in comparative economic history, with an emphasis on international finance and international trade. In addition to his UC Davis faculty position, he is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research [https://www.nber.org/] (NBER). He has held numerous visiting positions, including at the Paris School of Economics [https://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/en/], the International Monetary Fund [https://www.imf.org/en/home], and the Bank of England [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/]. In 2026-2027, he will be the Pitt Professor of American History at Cambridge University [https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/theme/american-history]. Publications: * One from the Many: The Global Economy since 1850. (2024) Oxford University Press. * Original Sin and the Great Depression (2023) Journal of International Economics. (with Michael Bordo) * Persistent Pandemics (2021) Economics and Human Biology (with Peter Z. Lin) * The French (Trade) Revolution of 1860: Intra-Industry Trade and Smooth Adjustment (2021) Journal of Economic History (with Stéphane Becuwe and Bertrand Blancheton) * Austerity and the Rise of the Nazi Party (2021) Journal of Economic History (with Gregori Galofré-Vilà, Martin McKee, and David Stuckler)

Wellness

The word “wellness” has been appropriated by a handful of for-profit industries, each with an interest in branding the concept as something achievable through their products or services. The upside of this branding is that wellness is much closer to the top of our minds. The downside is that many have become trained to believe that wellness can only be achieved through a purchase. So, what’s the truth? Does wellness really have a price tag? And what are the factors of wellness? In today’s episode, Dr. Scott Fishman [https://health.ucdavis.edu/advancingpainrelief/our_team/Scott_Fishman.html] reminds us of the vast scope of influences that affect our wellness and encourages us to consider the true meaning of the word. Bio: Scott M. Fishman is a professor in the UC Davis Health [https://health.ucdavis.edu/welcome/] Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, director of the UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief, [https://health.ucdavis.edu/advancingpainrelief/] and the executive director and Jacquelyn S. Anderson endowed chair for the UC Davis Office of Wellness Education [https://health.ucdavis.edu/wellness/]. An internationally recognized expert in pain and pain management, Fishman has held numerous leadership roles with the goal of alleviating pain. Such roles include past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine [https://painmed.org/], past chairman of the board of directors for the American Pain Foundation, and past board member for the American Pain Society [https://www.usasp.org/]. He is the immediate past chair and a current member of the Pain Care Coalition of the American Society of Anesthesiologists [https://www.asahq.org/advocating-for-you/pain-medicine], American Pain Society, and Academy of Pain Medicine. He advocates for safe use of pain medicines with consumers and lawmakers and also lectures on a wide variety of topics related to pain. Fishman has testified before several state legislatures as well as the U.S. Congress. He serves as a consultant for various federal agencies, sits on a panel for the American Academy of Medicine, and provides expert interviews for the media, including appearances on the “Today" show, “Good Morning America,” and "PBS NewsHour.”Publications: Fishman’s book publications include "The War on Pain" (Harper's Collins Publishers), "Listening to Pain" (Oxford Univ. Press), and "Responsible Opioid Prescribing" (Federation of State Medical Boards). He also co-authored "Spinal Cord Stimulation: Implantation Techniques" (Oxford Univ. Press). He co-edited "Bonica’s Management of Pain" (Lippincott), the "Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Pain Management" (Lippincott), and "Essentials of Pain Medicine and Regional Anesthesia" (Elsevier). He has authored many peer-reviewed articles in medical journals, book chapters, and other scholarly reviews. He previously served as a senior editor of the Pain Medicine journal and serves on the editorial boards of other medical journals.

Eugenics

So, you want to build a better baby. While many who have tried in the past have done so for not-so-good reasons, today’s emerging technology — while not capable of producing fully customized super-offspring — does allow us to maximize certain traits while minimizing certain risks. Today’s guest, Emily Merchant, walks us through the history, potential, and current state of genetic sciences.    Bio: Emily Merchant [https://www.emilyklancher.com/] is a historian of science and technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on the quantitative human sciences and technologies of human measurement. Her current project, Molecular Eugenics, combines archival research, oral history, and computational textual analysis to develop an intellectual, institutional, and material history of the genetic and genomic social sciences since the mid-twentieth century, and their contribution to eugenic projects in the postgenomic era. Her first book, Building the Population Bomb [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/building-the-population-bomb-9780197558942?cc=us&lang=en&] (Oxford 2021), examines how human population growth became a subject of scientific expertise and an object of governmental and philanthropic intervention in the twentieth century. Her research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, International Migration Review, and Population Research and Policy Review, as well as the production of public-use datasets for historical demography and environmental history. Publications:  * Emily Klancher Merchant. 2022. Environmental Malthusianism and Demography. Social Studies of Science 52(4): 536-560. * Emily Klancher Merchant and Carrie S. Alexander. 2022. Demography in Transition. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 55(3): 168-188. * Emily Klancher Merchant. 2021. Building the Population Bomb. New York: Oxford University Press. * Emily Klancher Merchant. 2021. American Demographers and Global Population Policy in the Postwar World. Modern American History 4(3): 239-261. * Emily Klancher Merchant. 2021. Assessing the Demographic Consequences of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Pp. 37-41 in Covid-19 and the Global Demographic Research Agenda, ed. Landis MacKellar and Rachel Friedman. New York: Population Council. * Projit Bihari Mukharji, Myrna Perez Sheldon, Elise K. Burton, Sebastián Gil-Riaño, Terence Keel, Emily Klancher Merchant, Wangui Muigai, Ahmed Ragab, and Suman Seth. 2020. A Roundtable Discussion on Collecting Demographics Data. Isis 111(2): 310-353. * Myron P. Gutmann and Emily Klancher Merchant. 2019. Historical Demography. Pp. 669-695 in Handbook of Population, Second Edition, ed. Dudley L. Poston, Jr. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.