Our fearless hosts discuss Constance’s “Rethinking Literature” course about infectious disease, medical ethics, and pandemics. She also loves a good meme, so those come up too. They also unpack one of Constance’s favorite quotes from Jo’s article, “Containment and Interdependence: Epidemic Logics in Asian American Racialization.” 

Jo writes, “I argue that any pursuit of justice for Asian Americans must respond to and take responsibility for the imbrications of our stories with anti-Blackness, colonization, and heteronormativity—that this difficult work of relating is necessary for breaking cycles of containment and devastation,” and in typical Constance fashion, she asks them to expand on an already expansive quote. 

Because Constance can never remember the name of anything, the texts she references in the episode are Hydra by Matt Wesolowski, The Kiss of Death: Contagion, Contamination, and Folklore by Andrea Kitta, and An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perception of Disease by Jon D. Lee. 

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