Journalist and academic Steven W. Thrasher joins the show to discuss his eye-opening new book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. Steven explains the idea of the viral underclass – those most societally vulnerable to disease transmission – and the criminalization of the sick. We also discuss his comparison of COVID-19 and HIV responses throughout the book and his positionally as a Black and queer writer discussing disease.
The Stacks Book Club selection for November is Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law. We will discuss the book on November 30th with Mariame Kaba.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.
- The Viral Underclass by Steven W. Thrasher
- Sean Strub
- “‘Tiger Mandingo,’ Who Got 30 Years For Not Telling Sex Partners He Had HIV, Is Free 25 Years Early” (Steven Thrasher, BuzzfeedNews)
- Tanya McKinnon
- Herschel Walker
- A Letter to Liberals by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Jamie Raab
- Lorena Borjas
- Cecily van Buren-Freedman
- Mark Schoofs
- Blue Lives Matter Laws
- “Despite Science, Police Still Add ‘Biting’ to Charges Against People With HIV” (Victoria Law, The Body)
- Michael Brown
- “Typhoid Mary” Mallon
- Rochelle Walensky
- Andrew Wakefield
- Jenny McCarthy
- Kirstie Alley
- Leana Wen
- “Ep. 239 The Purpose of a System Is What It Does with Mariame Kaba” (The Stacks)
- Prison by Any Other Name by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
- New York University (New York, NY)
- Tongues Untied (Marlon T. Riggs, 1989)
- Louise Seamster
- Melissa Gira Grant
- Zachary A. Siegel
- Northwestern University (Evanston, IL)
- Philip Glass
- “Music for 18 Musicians” (Steven Reich, 2000)
- Steven Thrasher at The Guardian
- Tisch School of the Arts (New York, NY)
- Alice Wong
- Year of the Tiger by Alice Wong
- Photo of Thrasher and Alice Wong
- Elite Capture by Olúfẹ́mi O Táíwò
- Raising Lazurus by Beth Macy
- Dopesick by Beth Macy
- Dopesick (miniseries) (Hulu)
- Under the Skin by Linda Villarosa
- The Women’s House of Detention by Hugh Ryan
- Heavy by Kiese Laymon
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
- Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
- The Viral Underclass by Steven W. Thrasher (audiobook)
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