Emily Dufton: Methadone, Suboxone, and the War on Drugs

Emily Dufton discusses her book Addiction, Inc.: Medication-Assisted Treatment and America’s Forgotten War on Drugs. It’s the history of the federal development and subsequent commercialization of the opioid addiction medication industry. Beginning with the Johnson Administration, the reasons the Federal response to and creation of drug policy moved from harm reduction to carceral solutions are explored. Emily Dufton, drug historian and writer, her writing has appeared in the Washington…

Inga Trauthig: Artificial Intelligence and World Elections

Inga Trauthig discusses her co-authored study for the International Panel on the Information Environment, “The Role Of Generative AI Use in the 2024 Elections Worldwide.” What are the implications of GenAI for election administration and voter participation around the world? This assessment delivers the first global, data-driven analysis of its kind, designed to inform policy recommendations Inga Trauthig is a research professor at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida…

Alec Karakatsanis: Copaganda and the Media

Alec Karakatsanis discusses his book, Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate the News. He outlines the concept of Copaganda which is a process of manufacturing fear of the most powerless to push the idea that our fears are only solved by more money for police, prisons, and prosecutions. By looking at news articles, the sources reporters use, and the repetitive language, he points to huge police P.R. Departments and private actors who shape and feed the news. Additionally, how even the…

J. Russell Hawkins: Segregationist Theology

J. Russell Hawkins discusses his book, The Bible Told Them So: How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy. Why did southern white evangelical Christians resist the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s? Simply put, they believed the Bible told them so. These white Christians entered the battle against integration and civil rights certain that God was on their side. J. Russell Hawkins is Professor of Humanities and History in the John Wesley Honors College at Indiana…

Oswaldo Zavala: Drug Cartels Do Not Exist

Oswaldo Zavala discusses his book, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist. He argues that stories around narcotics trafficking are largely based on n the claims of the US and Mexican governments and various cultural depictions. Zavala sees little connection to the realities of the trade as it exists. Media, in both countries, uncritically report law enforcement narratives regarding the narcotics trade in service of a national security myth. Oswaldo Zavala, a Mexican journalist and a professor of Latin…

Susila Gurusami: Criminalized Black Mothers 

Susila Gurusami discusses her book, "Break the System Criminalized Black Mothers and the Reproductive Politics of Abolition." By looking closely at the lives of formerly incarcerated Black mothers, Prof. Gurusami shows how state institutions—the criminal-legal, child welfare, and healthcare systems—keep Black mothers from their families, harming Black communities in the process. Susila Gurusami, Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the…

Stephen Kenny: Slave Hospitals

Professor Stephen Kenny discusses his article, “A Dictate of Both Interest and Mercy”: Slave Hospitals in the Antebellum South.” Beginning on the shores of West Africa, White doctors began to systematize racialized medicine in the service of slavery. Establishing institutions of idealized models of slave care, the story of slave hospitals became a self-serving lie of enslaver benevolence and racial difference. Plantation hospitals were rooms or shacks, while urban spaces resembled prisons. The…

Gabriel Schwartz: Evictions and Health Risks

Gabriel L. Schwartz discusses his work on “Eviction as a Community Health Exposure.” and “Moving due to unaffordable housing and disrupted social safety net access among children.” He talks about how moving and evictions lead to sometimes catastrophic health outcomes based on losing access to social safety net programs. Evictions upend people’s lives and the effect on children is great. Gabriel L. Schwartz, Assistant Professor Health Management & Policy, Drexel FIRST Program at Drexel…