“The eye is the organ of sight, and a symbol of insight, understood from ancient times as the aperture of the heart,” said Rebecca Messbarger. “In this show, we will look through the lens of the arts and humanities at stories of injury and repair.”
Messbarger, a professor of Italian in WashU’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in Arts & Sciences, is introducing “The Eye,” a new medical humanities podcast that aims to explore universal experiences of well-being, illness and care.
Launched May 12, “The Eye” reflects Messbarger’s commitment — as co-founder and former director of the medical humanities minor in Arts & Sciences — to engaging students in community-facing projects that bridge humanistic inquiry and public health. It also was inspired by the historic and literary themes of her course “Disease, Madness and Death, Italian Style,” which explores cultural representations of illness and mortality from medieval plagues to contemporary organized crime; and by WashU’s “Forum on Medicine, Race and Ethnicity in St. Louis, Past to Future,” which she organized in 2023.
Like that conference, “The Eye” brings a particular focus to issues facing St. Louis. Episode 1, “A Tale of Two Cities,” examines the intersection of medicine and race as well as the fragmentation of civic trust. Episode 2 tells the story of Homer G. Phillips Hospital, once a premier training ground for African American medical professionals, which the city closed in 1979. Episode 3 centers on Pruitt-Igoe, an ambitious public housing project that opened in 1954 and was infamously demolished just two decades later.
“While our subjects will vary, along with the angle and intensity of our vision, we will always begin where we live: in the city of St. Louis,” said Messbarger, who also has an appointment in WashU’s School of Public Health. “If we’re talking about cancer, contagion, gun violence, mental health or abortion, we will focus here first, before we pan out. But in these first three episodes of ‘The Eye,’ St. Louis itself is the object of our gaze.”
Hosted by Messbarger, the first three episodes were produced by recent WashU graduates Evan Bradley (AB ‘23), Tymon Krzywinsky (AB ’22) and Mishka Narasimhan (AB ’24). All three were students in the medical humanities minor. Bradley, a former campus EMT, is now at Georgetown School of Medicine. Krzywinsky is a medical student at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, N.Y. Narasimhan, senior editor of the podcast, is a clinical assistant and data analyst at St. Louis’ Bullet Related Injury Clinic.
Guests for the initial three episodes range from Will Ross, MD, associate dean for diversity at WashU Medicine, and Rich Liekweg, president and CEO of BJC Healthcare, to Sarah Fentem, health reporter at St. Louis Public Radio; Amy Shaw, president and CEO of Nine PBS; Mary Tillman, a former physician at Homer G. Phillips; Vanessa Cooksey, president and CEO of the Regional Arts Commission; and acclaimed visual artist Cbabi Bayoc.
To listen to complete episodes, visit Spotify or Apple Podcasts.