Dialogue on WUOT

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The landmark legislation broadened the scope of institutions barred from discriminating against people with disabilities.

The Tennessee General Assembly is a hive of political activity even in a slow year. This has not been a slow year. The plans laid out by Governor Bill Lee in his State of State message in February were torn up and rewritten in March as COVID-19 closed businesses and schools and a sharp economic recession followed. Lawmakers felt safe enough to reconvene in June. That session was marked by disagreement, the race to finish a tight budget and a reckoning with race and its role in the halls of the Capitol building.

WUOT's Chrissy Keuper hosted our June Dialogue, as we got out of lockdown and took the train with Todd Steed. He was our tour guide for his pre-COVID jazz music travelogue that became the podcast, “Improvisations to Go”. 

With a recent flood of information about COVID-19, it's hard to know what's true and what's not. And as we head to the presidential polls in just 6 months, it's never been more important to understand if and how information has been manipulated. One study suggests Tennesseeans were among those most likely to retweet Russian disinformation during the 2016 presidential election. WUOT News took an in-depth look at how and why false information spreads on the internet with three disinformation experts. 

The novel coronavirus dubbed COVID-19 has upended our daily lives in ways thought unlikely or impossible just a month ago. Though the virus has affected many parts of our lives, it's had profound effects in two areas: health and economics.

In this edition of Dialogue, we explore how COVID is being studied in the health profession, what it tells us about public health and what more health care providers want to know -- and need to know -- about this new illness.

On March’s Dialogue, WUOT’s Chrissy Keuper began a series of conversations about affordable housing with a discussion about housing for the homeless. Her guests were Bruce Spangler and Mary Beth Ramey of Volunteer Ministry Center and Chris Smith and Lisa Higginbotham of the University of Tennessee’s Social Work Office of Research and Public Service. 

We're at the dawn of year two for Governor Bill Lee. The political novice elected in November 2018 got an education in the ups and downs of state government in year one, notching victories (a school voucher program, money for career and technical education) and seeing some controveries (the tumultuous vote that secured the voucher program, scandals that forced House Speaker Glen Casada to setp down).

On December's Dialogue, WUOT's Chrissy Keuper took a look at the 'Ayn Gharandal archaeological field school in Jordan. Our guests were Erin Darby of the University of Tennessee’s Department of Religious Studies, Robert Darby of the UT School of Art, and students Ashley Cornell and Symantha Gregorash. They spoke about the project and what it’s like running a field school in the desert:

The Second World War has been fought many tims over, on the silver screen and on television. One count puts the number of World War II films at 1,300. They have been produced by every major country involved in the conflict. And they cover many genres, from action to romance, docudrama to satire, filmmakers have used the war as a vehicle for all kinds of stories, some more successfully than others.