Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

This week’s episode is as nourishing as they get, as chef Pati Jinich joins Jonathan to discuss cuisines along the US-Mexico border, holiday foods she associates with growing up in Mexico, and what we can learn from taking a bite out of a burrito.   Pati Jinich is a James Beard Award-winning Mexican chef who has dedicated her career to building a shared understanding between her two home countries: Mexico and the United States. Her long-running PBS series Pati’s Mexican Table has brought Mexican flavors, colors and textures into American homes and kitchens, as viewers have watched Pati thoughtfully and enthusiastically guide them through the various geographic regions of the country.    Pati is also the host of the recently released PBS Primetime special La Frontera, which highlights the unique foods and culture along the Texas-Mexico border, and has authored three cookbooks including the recently released Treasures of the Mexican Table.   You can follow Pati on Instagram and Twitter @PatiJinich, and learn more about her work at patijinich.com.   Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN.  Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

22 Dec 20211h

If you’re a regular listener of Getting Curious, you know how much Jonathan loves the Sister Act films. But how realistic were they? This week, former nuns Kelli Dunham and Mary Johnson share what it was like to serve with Mother Teresa (yeah, that Mother Teresa) in the Missionaries of Charity—and why they left the congregation. Kelli Dunham is a comic, writer, nurse, and genderqueer ex-nun. You can follow Kelli on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube @kellidunham—and at kellidunham.com. Make sure to check out Kelli’s storytelling series Queer Memoir at Caveat. Mary Johnson loves life. Her award-winning memoir An Unquenchable Thirst reveals the secret life inside her 20 years as a nun with the Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. As a Humanist Celebrant, Mary creates ceremonies for weddings, memorials, and all life’s transitions. Mary is also host of The Book Canopy and is working on a second book and a video series. You can follow Mary on Twitter @_MaryJohnson and at maryjohnson.co.  Want to hear more from Kelli and Mary, and other former Missionaries of Charity? Check out the excellent podcast series The Turning: The Sisters Who Left, inspired by Mary’s Memoir and produced by Rococo Punch and iHeartMedia. Find out what today’s guests and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN.  Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

15 Dec 20211h 17min

In 1903, a Frenchman and an American granted the United States ninety nine years of control over the Isthmus of Panama. No Panamanians signed that treaty. This week, Professor Kaysha Corinealdi and Jonathan explore the political history and legacy of what came next: the Panama Canal. Kaysha Corinealdi is an interdisciplinary historian of modern empires, migration, gender, and activism in the Americas. Her forthcoming book Panama in Black centers the activism of Afro-Caribbean migrants and their descendants as they navigated practices and policies of anti-Blackness, xenophobia, denationalization, and white supremacy in Panama and the United States. Her research can also be found in Black Perspectives (September 14, 2021), Caribbean Review of Gender Studies (Issue 12, 2018), the International Journal of Africana Studies (18:2, Fall-Winter 2017), and the Global South (6:2, Fall 2013).   You can follow her on Twitter @KCorinealdi, and read more of her work here.    Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN.  Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

8 Dec 20211h 10min

This week’s episode is a cut above the rest, as we explore the history and cultural significance of scissors. Join Jonathan and design historian Teresa Collenette as they talk ancient spring scissors, Victorian-era chatelaines, Jonathan’s go-to hair shears, and Teresa’s incredible collection of more than 100 pairs of scissors.  Teresa Collenette is a design historian, curator and collector. Teresa has curated several exhibitions with the Fashion and Textile Museum, including The Secret Life of Scissors in 2018 and Beautiful People: The Boutique in 1960s Counterculture, which is up now!   You can follow her on Instagram @thehouseofscissors.   Want to learn more about scissors? Check out these resources:   Handmade scissors in Sheffield at Ernest Wright   Scissors being made at Ernest Wright   Scissors maker William Whiteley & Sons, Sheffield   Scissor Collecting Magazine Dial M For Murder   The Secret Life of Scissors exhibition in The New York Times   Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN.  Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1 Dec 20211h 1min

Can you map out the Oregon Trail? If you just flashed back to playing The Oregon Trail video game in your sixth grade computer lab, get ready for a journey. Jonathan and Professor Margaret Huettl explore how Native knowledge systems established the Oregon Trail; how Native peoples experienced non-Native settlers moving West; and how Indigenous communities today are reckoning with this past to build a better future.   Margaret Huettl, a descendant of Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibweg, Assyrian refugees, and European settlers, is Assistant Professor in History and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is a scholar of Native American history and North American Wests, and her research examines the continuities of Ojibwe sovereignty in the context of settler colonialism in both the United States and Canada, centering Ojibwe ways of knowing.    You can follow her on Twitter @historianhuettl.   Want to learn more about the Oregon Trail?    See whose land you’re living on, or learn more about the Native nations whose land was crossed by the Oregon Trail: Native-Land.ca   Visit the only Oregon Trail museum run by Indigenous people: TAMÁSTSLIKT CULTURAL INSTITUTE   Explore the Fort Laramie Treaty through an interactive case study: Fort Laramie Treaty Case Study   Read Margaret’s work: “Treaty Stories: Reclaiming the Unbroken History of Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Sovereignty”   Learn more about Indigenous representations: IllumiNative.    Check out some Indigenous-centered games:   When Rivers Were Trails Invaders Growing Up Ojibwe Never Alone   Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN.  Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

24 Nov 20211h 3min

You may have seen tear gas marketed as a “non-lethal” or “less lethal” weapon. The truth is more dangerous. This week, Professor Anna Feigenbaum breaks down what’s in tear gas, who manufactures it, and what its poisonous history reveals about profit motivation and modern policing. Professor Anna Feigenbaum works at Bournemouth University in the South of England. She is the author of Tear Gas (Verso 2017). Her recent project The Data Storytelling Workbook (Routledge 2020) provides a guide to telling more effective, empathetic and evidence-based data stories.   You can follow Professor Feigenbaum on Twitter @drfigtree.   Want to learn more about tear gas? Here are some recommended resources:   Tear Gas: An Investigation — Amnesty International   RiotID (@RiotID on Twitter)   Welcome to Omega Research Foundation | Omega Research Foundation   Chemical Weapons Research Consortium   DTP   Physicians for Human Rights: Through evidence, change is possible. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

17 Nov 202159min

Have you ever met a redhead? Someone with green eyes? Someone with intersex traits?  If you answered yes to the first two questions, you can likely answer yes to the third: being intersex is as common as having red hair or green eyes. And that’s almost definitely an undercount.  This week, Alicia Roth Weigel lays out what it means to have intersex traits, why so many intersex children face medical abuse, and what justice looks like for intersex people. Alicia Roth Weigel is a Forbes and New York Times published change agent, working to improve the political and social landscape for marginalized populations in the South through her consulting firm Intrepida Strategy. As a Human Rights Commissioner for the City of Austin, she has contributed to legislation to reduce sexual assault and human trafficking, mandate paid sick leave and abortion funding, decriminalize and alleviate homelessness, and target other social determinants of health.  Most notably, Alicia continually advocates for the rights of intersex people like her, for which she was awarded the Ceci Gratias Guardian Award by the Austin LGBT Chamber of Commerce in 2019. Alicia is committed to fostering body autonomy and culturally competent healthcare for all. Make sure to follow Alicia on Instagram and Twitter @xoxy_alicia. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

10 Nov 202154min

Chances are, you’ve been exposed to vaccine misinformation. And you could be at risk of believing it. This week, Dr. Kolina Koltai joins Jonathan to explore how vaccine misinformation travels online, why it’s so dangerous, and how you can stop it from spreading.   Dr. Kolina Koltai is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the anti-vaccine community’s use of sociotechnical systems to find, share, and assess vaccine misinformation. She received her PhD in 2020 in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.   You can follow her on Twitter @kolinakoltai. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

3 Nov 20211h 1min