When Experts Attack!

Rafael Acosta Morales, author and University of Kansas associate professor of Spanish language and literature, argues traditional American media stereotypes of cowboys, desperadoes and drug lords don’t jibe with actual perceptions of people living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Increasingly, people are learning about historical events via video games. Guest Andrew Denning looks at just what versions of history are depicted in video games and considers how historians should react.

People might think it’s inappropriate to discuss recent anti-Asian and anti-Asian American discrimination and violence in the classroom. In this episode, researcher Hyesun Cho explains why school is one of the best places to talk about the topic.

The next time you go for a job interview, you might want to ditch the Che Guevara shirt or the MAGA hat — because what you reveal about your political leanings could determine if you land the gig.

Teri Finneman, associate professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, recounts the problematic history of media covering women in U.S. politics, from Victoria Woodhull, a.k.a “Mrs. Satan,” in 1872 to recent coverage of Kamala Harris’ shoes.

Molecular biologist and coronavirus researcher Anthony Fehr discuss the rollout of the new vaccines and what’s understood about COVID transmission at this point. He also says the coronavirus variant that’s prevalent in the U.S. might be more easily spread, accounting for at least some of our higher rates of infection and death than has been seen in other countries.

We might think of it today as a wasteland of ice and penguins, but Antarctica once was covered in greenery. Paleobotanist Brian Atkinson explains how to look for ancient plant fossils in Antarctica — and how those fossils could forecast the fate of plants on our rapidly warming planet.

Could the social and economic pressures faced by essential workers during the current pandemic be similar to those faced by women in the porn industry? Akiko Takeyama, author and associate professor of women, gender and sexuality studies, says in both the pandemic and porn, economic and structural issues make it hard for workers to say no.

The pandemic has changed how we use libraries. So has the internet. So what? Libraries have been evolving for 4,000 years in how they store and create knowledge. And libraries aren’t just the place where you find information — they lead the drive for creating and sharing knowledge with people all over the world.

Thomas Frank, author of “What’s the Matter with Kansas” and more recently “The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism,” explains that populism — a term invented in Kansas — has been commandeered by political opportunists in the U.S. and Europe.