The JayPod: A High Library Production

Are you interested in how the Amish population in the U. S. responded to the COVID vaccine in 2021? In this JayPod episode, host Josh Cohen spoke with Etown College student Alexander Waskiewicz, who recently completed a research project to try to understand how Old Order Amish populations reacted to news of the vaccine and how public health outreach efforts might be improved to better communicate with these populations. He completed his research in consultation with Etown College Professor of History and Anabaptist Studies, Dr. Steven Nolt. We discuss what Alex discovered as well as how some Old Order Amish communities tend to approach health care decisions and illness more broadly. It was a fascinating conversation on a topic that host Josh Cohen was eager to learn more about.
Alex is a junior at Etown, majoring in political science and public health. Dr. Nolt is a nationally recognized scholar on Anabaptist and Pietist Groups and has published many books on the Amish, Mennonites, and on Pennsylvania German history and culture. Some of his books include The Amish: A Concise Introduction and A History of the Amish.

This episode features a conversation with Erica Dolson, a professor in Elizabethtown College's English department who serves as the director of our creative writing program. Erica writes creative non-fiction (which she has also taught at the college) and she has published work in Full-Stop, Critical Read, and borrowed solace among other publications. She also regularly teaches first-year writing and professional writing.

Today we’ll be discussing the topic of creative non-fiction, her writing process, as well as some of the challenges and pleasures of writing on personal topics. She will read from and discuss a couple of her essays: “Chance of Showers,” published this past December in Bright Flash Literary Review, and “How I Renewed My Enthusiasm for Writing,” published in Hippocampus Magazine in late 2020.

In this episode of the podcast, Bruce Walsh, who teaches playwriting and acting at Elizabethtown College, talks about directing Julia Cho’s 2012 play, The Language Archive. The play focuses on the character of George, a linguist who studies and tries to preserve dying languages. Although language is his field of study, he struggles to communicate with other people, particularly with his wife, Mary, who leaves him at the start of the play.

We discuss some of the themes in the play, like the limitations of language and the struggle to communicate effectively with those we care about most, as well as Bruce’s history with the theater and his approach to directing student actors.

The Language Archive will be performed at Etown College’s Tempest Theatre on November 3, 4, 9, and 10 at 7:30pm and November 5 and 11 at 3:00pm at Etown College’s Tempest Theatre. Tickets can be purchased here.

In his 2004 novel, The Plot Against America, the late author Philip Roth explores an alternate version of American history from 1940 - 1942 in which FDR loses the 1940 presidential election against the isolationist, celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh, leading to serious consequences for the country, particularly for the Jewish population.
Etown College Professor of Political Science, Dr. Fletcher McClellan has used the novel in his senior seminar in recent years as a way to explore parallels between the fictional Lindbergh presidency of Roth's novel and the Trump presidency, focusing on the similarities between the isolationist, nativist ideology behind the America First movement of the early 40s and the MAGA movement. In this month's JayPod episode, we discuss these and other parallels and how the novel might inform discussions of current American politics and the state of our democracy.
In November 2022, Dr. McClellan published an article, "It Almost Happened (And Might Still Happen) Here: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America" in the Journal of Political Science Education on how he has used the novel in his senior seminars.

In this episode, Dr. Mark Harman, Professor Emeritus of German and English at Elizabethtown College and award-winning translator of Kafka and other authors, discusses his recent work, translating Kafka’s novella, commonly titled, “The Metamorphosis” in English but which Mark entitles, “The Transformation.” His translation is part of a forthcoming collection of Kafka stories on which Mark is currently working. We discuss the story, the translation process, and Kafka’s enduring appeal.