Episode 98: The Monster Episode of Monsters

Two cocktails in coupe glasses, clear yellow with red at the bottom of the glass, with dried rose petals floating on the surface.

“The Beautiful Ugly” cocktail, from Nectar of the Gods

It’s Halloween, and the monsters are out! In this episode we tackle Monster Theory (as formulated by J.J. Cohen) , examine the linguistic and cultural origins of a range of Classical and classic movie monsters, look at how they connect to the history of currency and money, and explore the intersections of monsters and the New Woman. We also sample a beautiful cocktail from the upcoming cocktail book Nectar of the Gods by Liv Albert from “Let’s Talk about Myths, Baby”. Thank you, Liv!

The Monster video

Monster Theory by J.J. Cohen

Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture by Liz Gloyn

Our podcast episode interviewing Dr. Gloyn

Horace Odes 1.37

Hesiod passage about Medusa is Theogony 270ff; more info about Medusa here

Ovid passage about Medusa is Metamorphoses 4.753ff

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Transcript of this episode

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Episode 80: Runes and Early Writing Systems

We take a look at the history of runes and their connection to early alphabets and Germanic culture. Then we take a trip back to the Phoenician and Egyptian origins of the modern English alphabet, and talk about some of the earliest examples of Greek writing, in inscriptions, epic poetry, and myth. Also, introducing Lyceum, a new platform for educational podcasting!

Transcript of this episode

The “Screaming Viking” cocktail

Lyceum

NativLang’s video Muslim Vikings & Magic Letters: The Odd History of Runes pt 1

Our Rune video

Images of English Runes

The story of Hyacinth (see under “Larkspur”) and images of possible “Ai Ai” flowers

“THE TEXT: Signs of Writing in Homer.” Homer: The Poetry of the Past, by ANDREW FORD, Cornell University Press, Ithaca; London, 1992, pp. 131–171. JSTOR.

The Runecast podcast

This episode on YouTube

Our Patreon page

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

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