Gala Rexer talks to Edna Bonhomme, culture writer, historian of science, journalist, and author of “A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to COVID-19” (2025). The conversation covers theoretical and methodological questions about the relationship between confinement and disease, Edna’s anti/inter-disciplinary approach to writing, health and illness in literature, and how the intersectional fight for prison abolition relates to struggles for health equality.

This conversation was recorded in June 2025

Speakers: Dr Gala Rexer, Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Warwick and Honorary Research Fellow at the SPRC // Dr Edna Bonhomme

Producer: Gala Rexer and Trisha Hart

Editors: James Fox

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In this podcast, Subhadra Das answers ten questions on ten lies that make up Western Civilisation. The conversation covers looting, the value of art, the history of statistics, remaking public history, repatriating stolen objects, and what museums and institutions could be doing with their zombies.

Subhadra Das is a writer, historian, broadcaster and comedian who looks at the relationship between science and society. She specialises in the history and philosophy of science, particularly the history of scientific racism and eugenics. For nine years she was Curator of the Science Collections at University College London. She has written and presented podcasts and stand-up comedy shows, curated museum exhibitions, and has appeared on radio and TV. She is now working on a book about the golden age of detective fiction and the history of eugenics.

Lara Choksey is Lecturer in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures at UCL English, and Associate Faculty at the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre.

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Discussion of Gargi’s research and the new module designed to open conversations about how we might understand the interplay between global politics and the global economy in this moment of rapid realignment.

Speakers:

Gargi Bhattacharyya, Paige Patchin, Luke de Noronha

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