Oxford University podcast's third season to take listeners on a journey through historical pandemics

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Nov 30 2020

The University of Oxford's CASE Gold Award winning podcast, Futuremakers, will return for its third season at the end of October. Featuring a sweeping original soundtrack, the podcast will take listeners on a narrative journey through ten significant pandemics across humanity's history, from the Siege of Athens to the 2014 Western African Ebola outbreak, via the Black Death and Spanish Flu.

Join host, Gilbert Ryle Fellow and Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford, Peter Millican, as he takes a journey through ten historical outbreaks, asking what we know of what happened at the time, whether we might learn anything for today's COVID-19 pandemic, and what might be coming in the future.

Episode list:

1: Athens: the first plague?

2: The Plague of Justinian

3. The Black Death

4: The Great Plague

5: Smallpox, and Jenner

6: Cholera, and John Snow

7: The Flu Pandemic... that wasn't?

8: The Spanish Flu

9: HIV and AIDS

10: Ebola 2014

Featuring a diverse range of notable voices from the University of Oxford and across the globe on every episode, each episode reflects the conversations and global collaboration that underpins the heart of scientific endeavor.

This season follows on from two highly successful seasons covering the implications of climate change and artificial intelligence on our society and how we live, and a one-off special exploring the 'race' to develop the world's first truly scalable quantum computer.

The first five episodes of the series will be released this Sunday 29 November 2020, across a wide range of platforms including Apple and Spotify, and you can find the full list and more information about the series at https://bit.ly/TheHistoryOfPandemics

Futuremakers is produced by Ben Harwood and Steve Pritchard for the University of Oxford, with Season 3's cinematic score being composed and recorded by Richard Watts.

You can download the podcast at: http://bit.ly/futureMAKERS (AudioBoom), http://bit.ly/FUTUREmakers (Apple) or from any of the platforms listed here https://bit.ly/TheHistoryOfPandemics

To get in touch with the production team, or arrange interviews Prof. Millican or with any of the guests from the University of Oxford, contact [email protected]