Taboo Trades

Fatherhood, Family Law, and the Crisis of Boys and Men, with June CarboneJune Carbone joins Kim Krawiec, student co-host Damon Stefankiewicz, and members of UVA Law’s Taboo Trades seminar to discuss “Fatherhood, Family Law, and the Crisis of Boys and Men,” coauthored with Clare Huntington. Carbone argues that the difficulties facing boys and men—particularly those without college degrees—are rooted in economic precarity and policy choices, and that family law can compound these problems by ex...

In this episode, we welcome listeners to Season 7 of the Taboo Trades Podcast and introduce this year’s UVA Law student hosts: Mia Armstrong, Sahanya Bhaktaram, Tyler Donovan, Kate Garmer, Liz Jahoda-Wassung, Joseph Keys, Angelica Kim, Virginia Pillion, Jake Ross, Linnea Selendy, and Damon Stefankiewicz. Meet the students who will guide us through a new season of conversations about the markets and exchanges society considers uncomfortable, controversial, or taboo.

My guests today are Andrew Gilden, Southwestern Law School, and Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec, William & Mary Law School. They join me today to discuss their recent paper, Patenting the Taboo: Sex, Drugs, and Abortion, recently published in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. It’s a really fun article that looks at patent applications in three taboo spaces: sexual pleasure, illicit drugs, and abortion technologies. Some of the themes are very similar to ones Andrew Jennings and I highlight...

My student co-hosts sign off, bringing Season 6 to an official close. Never fear, I'll be back throughout 2026 with exciting bonus episodes.

My guest today is Diane Tober, an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama Department of Anthropology and Institute for Social Science Research. She is a medical anthropologist with a focus on biocultural aspects of health, gender and sexuality, the commodification of the body, science and technology studies, bioethics, and social and reproductive justice. She has been conducting research exploring egg donors’ decisions and experiences within the global market for human eggs since 201...