We speak to Dr. Carolyn Willekes about horses in antiquity: their development and domestication, their use in warfare, their training and breeding, and her many adventures riding horses across Greece, Turkey, Mongolia, and Canada.
Episode 87: Alexander the Great, with Meg Finlayson
This episode is all about Alexander the Great, and especially about his reception by later Greeks & Romans, the middle ages, and modern popular culture. We had the pleasure of interviewing Meg Finlayson who studies Alexander and his reception and shared their knowledge, enthusiasm, and dreams of a new Alexander movie with Colin Farrell playing Philip!
Alexander mosaic
Alexander sarcophagus
Pompey “the Great”
Alexander the Great in his “submarine”
Meg’s twitter @agameganon
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Episode 82: Plagues, with Moxie from Your Brain on Facts
It’s time for us to talk about plagues — ancient, medieval, literary, etymological, and psychological! We’re joined by Moxie from Your Brain on Facts for a very fun — if slightly disturbing — discussion of many aspects of historical plagues.
Gardner, H.H. Pestilence and the Body Politic in Latin Literature. 2019.
Episode 44: "Us" & "Them" in the Ancient & Anglo-Saxon Worlds
Episode 51: Race & Racism in Ancient & Medieval Studies, Part One: The Problem
Episode 52: Race & Racism in Ancient & Medieval Studies, Part Two: Responses
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Episode 77: SoundEdu19, with Scott Lepisto
Crossover time! We’re joined by Scott Lepisto, of the Itinera Podcast, in a conversation at the SoundEducation podcasting conference in Boston. We talked about the conference itself, the use of podcasting in classrooms, and the importance of public-facing scholarship in Classics and Medieval Studies. And please check out Scott’s podcast, in which he interviews classicists about their work and their journey to and through the field!
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Episode 75: Tracking Monsters, with Liz Gloyn
We speak with Dr. Liz Gloyn about her new book, Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture. We talk about Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, the Odyssey, the problems with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey pattern, and more!
Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture
Facebook Page for Tracking Classical Monsters
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Episode 74: Medieval Fact & Fiction, with Winston Black
We talked to Winston Black about his new book, The Middle Ages: Facts & Fictions, which addresses the most common myths and misconceptions about the Middle Ages. And we touch on video games, D&D, and Game of Thrones in the process!
The SoundEducation Conference page
The Middle Ages: Facts & Fictions
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Episode 72: Dispatches from VidCon 2019
While at VidCon this year, we sat down and chatted with a few of our fellow educational YouTubers: The Cynical Historian, Knowing Better, 12tone, and Step Back History. This is a compilation of our discussions about their channels, their reasons for making videos, and their experience of VidCon and its educational companion event, EduCon. If you don’t already watch their videos, we strongly recommend you check them out. Thank you to them all for taking part!
This podcast episode on YouTube
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Episode 70: Carly Silver
We spoke to Carly Silver, an editor and a writer on ancient history and horse racing, about how she connects the past to contemporary issues, the intriguing stories in curse tablets in Roman Britain, murder mysteries set in the ancient world, romance novels, breeding programs for American Thoroughbreds, and more!
Carly’s article about Hadrian’s Wall
Carly’s article about the sexual assault charges against a workman in ancient Egypt
Carly’s writing about horse racing
Ancient murder mysteries mentioned in the podcast:
Gary Corby, Athenian Mysteries
John Maddox Roberts, SPQR series
Agatha Christie “Death Comes as the End”
This podcast episode on YouTube
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Episode 67: Mortal Republic, by Edward Watts
We talk to Edward Watts about his new book Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny, which covers the history of Rome from the 3rd century BCE to the rise of Octavian to princeps. Our conversation ranges across questions of Roman identity, our fascination with transitional periods, and the connections between Roman history and contemporary politics.
Ancient Greece Declassified episode 19 “America's Greco-Roman Legacies w/ Caroline Winterer”
This podcast episode on YouTube
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Episode 66: Writing Myth with Amalia Dillin
Amalia Dillin is an author of mythic fantasy and historical fiction set in the ancient and Viking worlds. Among other books, she’s written the Fate of the Gods trilogy, about Eve and Adam (and Thor and Athena and more!), and the Orc Saga, beginning with Honor among Orcs. She also writes, as Amalia Carosella, about Bronze Age Greece (Helen of Sparta & sequels, about the love between Helen & Theseus) and the Viking Age (Daughter of a Thousand Years, about Freydis, daughter of Erik the Red, and also a modern women wrestling with her newly found pagan faith).
We spoke to Amalia before the holidays about her love of mythology, the complexities of writing historical fiction, and goats!
And hey, the Kindle of Daughter of a Thousand Years is on sale for $0.99, and the paperback is also on sale!
Amalia’s website with links to her blog and all of her books.
Freydis, in the Saga Museum, Reykjavik
Episode 64: The History of the English Language with Kevin Stroud
While at the Sound Education conference we had the chance to sit down with Kevin Stroud, host of the History of the English Language podcast. We talked about his passion for language, his experiences with enthusiastic but pedantic listeners, his project to gather a database of accent samples from around the world, and much more. Thank you Keven for chatting with us, it was great fun to meet you and hang out!
The History of the English Language podcast
Our video “What’s the Earliest English Word?”
This podcast episode on YouTube
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Episode 58: Symposium!
Columella's Mead
Paul
Matt, Vicky, Conor, & Kevin
Alison, Melanie, & Melissa
Mary, Peter, & Amber
Rachel Mazzara, Chiara Graf, Drew Davis, Matthew Watton, & Jesse Hill
This episode, we travel to Calgary, Alberta for a conference, and try some very questionable "ancient" potables! Aven takes a microphone on the road, and chats with a bunch of classicists about Roman beer, barley water, Homeric kykeon, conference papers, social media, and more!
Matt Gibbs' article in The Conversation
The slides & papers & resources from the Public-Facing Scholarship panel
Our previous episode about ancient and medieval beer brewing
This podcast episode on YouTube
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Episode 56: Linguistic Discrimination, with The Vocal Fries
We have the great pleasure to be joined by Megan & Carrie from the Vocal Fries podcast to talk about linguistic discrimination: what is it, why is it bad, what is its history, and how can we combat it?
Show Notes
This podcast episode on YouTube
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Episode 48: Talking Teaching with Mythtake!
Alison & Darrin from MythTake Podcast dropped by Sudbury -- and sat down with us for a chat about teaching myth, literature, and more. Make sure you check out their podcast for great discussions about myth and Greek literature.
Show Notes
Introduction to Mythology from Oxford UP
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
Episode 40: The Cottage, Language, & Poetry
We're back at the cottage, and this time we're talking to Ian and Susan McMaster about language, computer programming, poetry, music, theatre, and more, as we chat about the serendipitous connections that led to careers, performances, and relationships. Along the way we play a few tracks of Susan McMaster's poetry, more of which (both texts and recordings) can be found at her website. Susan's recent publications include Crossing Arcs: Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me and Lizard Love: Artists Scan Poems.
The three works included in the podcast are "Shadowless" from Pass This Way Again (Underwhich Editions), the beginning of "The Pleasure of Lusting" from Geode Music & Poetry, and "Science Song #1" from Dark Galaxies.
Show Notes
Susan McMaster's website (with links to poems & list of publications)
Episode 37: What is a Recipe? with Laura Carlson
We talk to Laura Carlson from The Feast Podcast about recreating historical recipes, the many meanings of food, and what exactly defines a 'recipe'. This is part of The Recipe Project's Virtual Conversation: What is a Recipe? which started on June 2nd, 2017 and is continuing until July 5th, and you can join in the conversation by leaving a comment here or by checking out the hashtag #recipesconf on Twitter and Instagram.
Show Notes
The Recipe Project: A Virtual Conversation, "What is a Recipe?"
Episode 3: The Medieval Michelin Guide: Finding Food on the Camino de Santiago, 1490
Paul Freedman's Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination
Episode 30: Baba Brinkman & Peer-Reviewed Rap
We have the immense pleasure of interviewing Baba Brinkman, a Canadian rap artist & award-winning playwright best known for his “Rap Guide” series of plays and albums, with which he has toured the world; these cover topics like evolution, religion, medicine, and most recently climate change. He’s also pioneered the genre of ‘lit-hop’ with his adaptations of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Gilgamesh, Beowulf & more. Our conversation ranges through tree-planting; the connections between Homer, Chaucer, & rap; Horace, Lucretius, & Erasmus Darwin as science communicators; the comedy of neuroscience; Trump; language & dictionaries; and more.
At the end of the interview we play a couple of tracks by Baba: his newest single "Erosion", and the first two tracks from his Rap Canterbury Tales album, "General Prologue" & "The Knight's Tale (scene 1)".
Show Notes
A brief history of rhyme | Baba Brinkman | TEDxNavesink
Baba Brinkman & Professor Elemental - What's Your English?
Episode 26: Rogue One
We're joined by Sam McLean to discuss Rogue One's connections to Germanic heroism, Norse thautr, Roman epic, Terry Pratchett, heist films, & The Dirty Dozen. Following up last year's conversation about The Force Awakens, we're interested in seeing how the newest Star Wars film changes genres and develops new themes.
This podcast episode on YouTube