Coming up next week on Focus, we’ll talk about cycling and how strong biking communities and cultures are fostered, why records are coming back and if they’ll stick around. We’ll also talk about nanotechnology and the exciting possibilities for the future.
Jane Brody is known for her writing on health, wellness and end of life preparation and care. Her Personal Health column in the New York Times is syndicated across the country and new every Tuesday. For the first half of this hour on Focus, Jim Meadows talks with Brody about her writing and career. She’ll be speaking at the UIUC Monday, April 29.
During the second half of this hour, Jim talks with Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to register for and run the Boston Marathon with a bib number. She’ll be in Champaign-Urbana for the Illinois Marathon. We’ll talk with her about her relationship with marathoning, the recent tragedy in Boston, and the famous photo of the 1967 Boston Marathon Race Commissioner trying to drag her from the race course.
Even though the ban on women serving in combat was only officially lifted last week, women have already been serving on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. This hour host Craig Cohen talks with Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Erica Borggren about what the ban means for women in the military and about her experiences serving in Iraq.
Living Color investigates the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present, showing how our body’s most visible trait influences our social interactions in profound and complex ways. Nina G. Jablonski begins with the biology and evolution of skin pigmentation, explaining how skin color changed as humans moved around the globe. She explores the relationship between melanin pigment and sunlight, and examines the consequences of rapid migrations, vacations, and other lifestyle choices that can create mismatches between our skin color and our environment. This book explains why skin color has come to be a biological trait with great social meaning— a product of evolution perceived by culture. It considers how we form impressions of others, how we create and use stereotypes, how negative stereotypes about dark skin developed and have played out through history—including being a basis for the transatlantic slave trade. Offering examples of how attitudes about skin color differ in the U.S., Brazil, India, and South Africa, Jablonski suggests that a knowledge of the evolution and social importance of skin color can help eliminate color-based discrimination and racism.
Maro Chermayeff, Executive Producer and Director
Edna Adan, Founder, Edna Adan Hospital of Somaliland
Host: Craig Cohen
Inspired by journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book of the same name, Half the Sky - Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women is a four-hour television series for PBS that documents women and girls who are living under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable — and fighting to change them. Their intimate, dramatic and immediate stories of struggle reflect viable and sustainable options for empowerment and offer a blueprint for transformation. We'll talk with two guests - Maro Chermayeff, Executive Producer and Director, as well as one of the activists featured in the film, Edna Adan, founder of the Edna Hospital in Somaliland. Half the Sky airs on WILL-TV in two parts, on October 1st and 2nd at 8 pm.
This is a repeat broadcast from Monday, June 11, 2012, 10 am
Florence Williams, contributing editor at Outside Magazine and a freelance writer for New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slate, Mother Jones, High Country News, O-Oprah, W., Bicycling and numerous other publications
Host: David Inge
Florence Williams
Science writer Florence Williams says that to have breasts is to be human. We are the only animals who have breasts continuously from puberty on. And, she says, they are in need of protection. Because they store fat, they also store toxic, fat-loving chemicals. She says they are indicators for the changing health of people. We’ll explore the origins and meaning of this distinctly human feature as we talk with Florence Williams about her new book "Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History."
With Aaron Bobrow-Strain, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Politics, Whitman College)
With Lesley Wexler, J.D. (Professor of Law, College of Law, University of Illinois), and , and Michael H. LeRoy, J.D. (Professor of Labor and Industrial Relations and Law, School of Labor & Employment Relations, and College of Law, University of Illinois)
With Mara Hvistendahl (Beijing-Based Correspondent for Science)
