Jonathan Metzl
highly-reviewedAbout Jonathan Metzl
“I really can't say enough about Jonathan's open and easy communication. He's very generous, super easy to talk to, kind, and a great speaker. Thank you!”
Speech topics
What We've Become – Guns in America
“What is the meaning of public health in an armed society?” asks psychiatrist and author Dr. Jonathan Metzl. In his vital book, "What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms," Dr. Metzl takes on an urgent topic: mass shootings and the contested social and racial politics of American firearms. Rather than preaching to one side or the other of the polarizing gun debate, he asks us to step back and think of the broader questions we face as a nation: How do we imagine safety? Are the divisions too deep, or is it possible to come together in solidarity? And, how on earth did we get here? This piercing analysis shows mass shootings as a symptom of our deepest unresolved conflicts. Dr. Metzl ultimately lights the long road of alliance-forging, racial-reckoning, and political power-brokering we must take to set things right.
Speaking videos
Books by Jonathan Metzl
“What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms” (2024)
What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms
“Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland” (2019)
A physician reveals how right-wing backlash policies have mortal consequences -- even for the white voters they promise to helpNamed one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Esquire and the Boston GlobeIn the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death.Physician Jonathan M. Metzl's quest to understand the health implications of "backlash governance" leads him across America's heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment has fueled progun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. And he shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates. White Americans, Metzl argues, must reject the racial hierarchies that promise to aid them but in fact lead our nation to demise.
“The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease” (2010)
The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease
“Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality (Biopolitics, 18)” (2010)
Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality (Biopolitics, 18)
“Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs” (2003)
Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs
At a glanceJonathan Metzl
Recommended offer:
Get a custom quote for your event:
Get StartedBrowse Similar Speakers
Speaker Search is a marketplace of speakers designed for talent buyers. We do not represent or manage speakers; instead, we provide event planners with the most comprehensive resource to discover and book the right talent.