The Sunday Magazine for October 11, 2020
This week on The Sunday Magazine with host Piya Chattopadhyay:
Canadians deserve greater vaccine transparency from the federal government: As the race for a COVID-19 vaccine continues, Matthew Herder says Canadians deserve greater transparency about the deals secured by the federal government. Herder, who is the head of Dalhousie University's Health Law Institute, says deliberations about acceptable safety and efficacy standards for the vaccine are mostly happening behind closed doors — and this lack of transparency could undermine public confidence in a vaccine once it's ready.
Gathering is a deep-seated human need: On a weekend when many families and friends would normally get together for Thanksgiving dinner, the pandemic is forcing us apart. But as anthropologist and McGill University assistant professor of psychiatry Samuel Veissière explains, gathering is a deep-seated human need. Chattopadhyay speaks with him about what drives this powerful social urge... and what we lose by not being able to fulfill it.
How the Trump presidency has changed the conversation around race and racism: With just three weeks to go until one of the most contentious elections in modern American history, Chattopadhyay speaks with renowned antiracist thinker Ibram X. Kendi about how Donald Trump's presidency has changed the conversation around race and racism in the United States, the tremendously high stakes on November 3rd, and what the quest for racial justice looks like pre- and post-election.
Exploring the legacy of segregation in the U.S.: In her new novel Jack, about an interracial romance in 1940s Missouri, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson explores the legacy of segregation in the United States and how societies implicate us all in doing harm. She speaks with Chattopadhyay about her characters' attempts to imagine a new world, and about what kind of country America could become.
