To fend off American and European imperialism in the nineteenth century, Japan strove to strengthen itself by drawing on the most updated ideas and practices from around the world. By the 1880s, this included the introduction of Western-derived psychiatry and its ideas about mental illness. The first Japanese psychiatrists claimed that mental illnesses requi ... Show More
Today
Murat C. Yildiz, "The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul" (U Texas Press, 2026)
The history of sports in Turkey is deeply contested. Over the decades, journalists, pundits, non-professional historians, sports scholars, and everyday people have offered competing narratives about the origins of modern sports in the late Ottoman Empire. In The Ottoman World of ... Show More
1h 5m
Yesterday
The Letters of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was a letter writer before she was a poet. And it was through letters that she shared prose reflections–alternately humorous, provocative, affectionate, and philosophical–with her extensive community. While her letters often contain poems, and some letters consist ... Show More
55m 18s
Jan 2023
Matthew Smith, "The First Resort: The History of Social Psychiatry in the United States" (Columbia UP, 2022)
Social psychiatry was a mid-twentieth-century approach to mental health that stressed the prevention of mental illness rather than its treatment. Its proponents developed environmental explanations of mental health, arguing that socioeconomic problems such as poverty, inequality, ... Show More
43m 12s
Jul 2024
Wendy Matsumura, "Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)
In Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire (Duke UP, 2024) Wendy Matsumura interrogates the erasure of colonial violence at the heart of Japanese nation-state formation. She critiques Japan studies’ role in this effacement and contends ... Show More
59m 25s
Oct 2025
Special Episode: Antonia Hylton & Madness
The United States is in the midst of a monumental mental health crisis, with one in four people predicted to experience mental illness at some point in their lives. Adequate mental health care remains out of reach of so many due to a myriad of factors: unaffordability, stigma, sh ... Show More
56m 32s
Nov 2023
Treatment and recovery from serious mental illness, with Kim Mueser, PhD
Among the many challenges people with serious mental illness face is the stigma surrounding illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Kim Mueser, PhD, of the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University, talks about the progress psychology has made in tr ... Show More
36m 39s