Episode 90: Unrolling Books and Evolving Words

Episode 90: Unrolling Books and Evolving Words
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

We talk about the history of the book, the reading habits of the ancient Romans, the pliability of sheep skins, and the mechanisms of semantic change that cause words to evolve over time. Oh, and we discuss Charles Darwin’s own language for his new theory.

The "Codex Cocktail" was created for us by Ed Bedford — recipe here

Liber Adest newsletter

Our new page of cocktails from the podcast

McCutcheon, R. W. “Silent Reading in Antiquity and the Future History of the Book.” Book History, vol. 18, 2015, pp. 1–32., www.jstor.org/stable/43956366

“In Ancient Rome” by Joseph Howley, in Further Reading, edited by Matthew Rubery and Leah Price. 2020.

Erasmus Darwin video

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Switcheroo 2021!

Switcheroo!
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

This year for April Fool's Day we're taking part in a podcast switcheroo where podcasters are trading episodes to introduce their audiences to other podcasts they think you might enjoy. So we're having the great folks from Bunny Trails, Shauna and Dan, showcase one of their episodes, about the phrase “Queen Bee”.

Bunny Trails Podcast

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Episode 89: Horses in Antiquity, with Carolyn Willekes

Episode 89: Horses in Antiquity, with Carolyn Willekes
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

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.

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Announcement: Online Course

Speakeasy Course Announcement

Aven: Hi everyone. This isn't a regular episode of the Endless Knot podcast. Just a quick announcement.

Mark: I wanted to let you all know about something new that I'm doing: an online seminar series. It's basically a short course open to anyone, on the Speakeasy platform.  The title is: "The origins of English: learning to think like an etymologist" and it's going to be four one-hour classes on zoom, in which, through a series of linguistic puzzles, we will follow in the footsteps of etymologists and historical linguists to reconstruct the relationships between languages and long forgotten roots of English words.

The class is limited to 12 people and starts on Thursday, March 4th, at 7:00 PM eastern time, running on the three following Thursdays at the same time. If you're interested, you can go to our website at alliterative.net, and there's a link to the Speakeasy page, where you can buy a ticket.

Or if you'd like to take part, but the timing doesn't work for you, you can leave Speakeasy a message about what would be better, and we'll try and take that into consideration when we schedule the next session. Because if this goes well, I'm hoping not only to be able to repeat it, but also do some different courses on Old English poetry, on the development of English from the early middle ages to today, and more

Aven: So if you think this sounds fun, please go to our website at www.Alliterative.net for more information.

Mark: Hope to get to meet you online sometime soon! 

Link for more info and to buy tickets

Episode 88: Meta-Etymology

Episode 88: Meta-Etymology
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

Episode 87: Alexander the Great, with Meg Finlayson

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Episode 87: Alexander the Great, with Meg Finlayson
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

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 mosaic

Alexander sarcophagus

Alexander sarcophagus

Pompey “the Great”

Pompey “the Great”

Alexander the Great in his “submarine”

Alexander the Great in his “submarine”

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Episode 86: Who's on Your Calendar?

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Ep 86 Calendar
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

Happy holidays! In this seasonal episode we discuss the origins of the modern Western calendar, the names of the months and days of the week, and the sources we have for Roman calendars and Germanic gods. Happy new year, and may it be better than the last!

Our poster store

Crosscut Distillery

Sabbath

Millennial

Ovid's Fasti

Herbert-Brown, Geraldine. “Fasti: the Poet, the Prince, and the Plebs” in A Companion to Ovid, ed. Peter E. Knox, Wiley-Blackwell. 2013.

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Episode 85: Election Talk to Take Your Mind off the Election

Episode 85: Election Talk to Take Your Mind off the Election
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

It’s election night 2020 in the US, and our video from 4 years ago about the language of politics is relevant once again. We discuss the changing vocabulary of democracy and what it can tell us about shifting attitudes towards popular rule and politicians. It may not be a complete break from political coverage, but at least it’s mostly about the distant past, not the uncertain future!

Ballot Box Cocktail

Mashed Radish blog post on Candidate

Mashed Radish blog post on Poll

Anatoly Liberman on Booth

“Sublime” video

“Sublime” podcast

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Episode 84: Linoleum: It's Not As Boring As You Think!

Episode 84: Linoleum: It's Not As Boring As You Think!
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

In this episode we go from the origin of the world to the many uses of olive oil, with discussions of Roman mosaics, and trademark law along the way. This is the third of our episodes on Intellectual Property, following Episode 42: Bugging Out! on patents and Episode 57: Freebooting, Piracy, & Copyright on copyright. Also, it’s the start of Season 6, and we want to thank everyone who’s joined us over the last 5 years. It’s been a blast, and here’s to another half decade!

“The asàrotos òikos mosaic as an elite status symbol” by Ehud Fathy

Ancient History Encyclopedia — the olive

Oxford Dictionaries blog post on “gasoline”

Hesiod, Theogony

First oil derrick — picture

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Episode 83: Recipes and Authority, from Intelligent Speech

Episode 83: Recipes and Authority, from Intelligent Speech
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

Back in June we had the pleasure of being part of the Intelligent Speech Conference 2020 — this year, held entirely online. It was a day filled with amazing podcasters and great conversations, and in this short episode we’re sharing the talk that we gave at the event. It’s about the word Recipe and early cookbooks, medicine, and women’s magazines. If you’d like to see the images that accompanied the presentation, you can watch the talk on YouTube, where the questions and post-talk discussion are also included.

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Intelligent Speech Conference

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Episode 82: Plagues, with Moxie from Your Brain on Facts

Episode 82 Plagues
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

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.

Transcript of this episode

Your Brain on Facts

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

Thorneloe Race forum episode

Statue/Systemic

Crisis/Discrimination

Thug/Protect

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Episode 81: The Rise (and Fall) of Skywalker

Episode 81: The Rise (and Fall) of Skywalker
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

In an episode that was recorded in late May before the protests started, we took a break from COVID talk to give our thoughts on the final movie in the Star Wars saga. We discussed how it was similar to or different from ancient epic, medieval romance, and Icelandic sagas, but mostly we talked about the ways it failed to bring together the many threads of the Star Wars story.

Given current events, and the protests against police brutality and systemic anti-Black racism, we urge our white and non-Black listeners to continue their education on these subjects and, if you’re able, donate to support people fighting for justice. One good podcast series is “Seeing White” from SceneOnRadio, and there are anti-racism reading lists here and here; you can donate to Black Lives Matter or The National Bail Out Fund, or any of the many causes that need funds right now.

We also have two episodes on race and racism in medieval studies and classics; they’re several years old now, but may be of interest for thinking about issues of race in our particular fields, and the role our disciplines have played in supporting structural racism in Europe and North America. EPISODE 51: RACE & RACISM IN ANCIENT & MEDIEVAL STUDIES, PART ONE: THE PROBLEM and EPISODE 52: RACE & RACISM IN ANCIENT & MEDIEVAL STUDIES, PART TWO: RESPONSES.

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Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire Cookbook

Lyceum

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Episode 80: Runes and Early Writing Systems

Episode 80: Runes and Early Writing Systems
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

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

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Episode 79: Sex & Gender

photo credit: Flickr user get directly down

photo credit: Flickr user get directly down

Episode 79: Sex & Gender
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

We trace the etymologies and development of the words “sex” and “gender”, as well as words for women and men in Greek, Latin, and English, touching on Roman, Greek, and medieval English ideas about gender. Then we discuss the grammatical term “gender” and how it differs across languages around the world.

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The History of Sex Podcast

The “Pink Lady” cocktail

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Episode 78: An Etymological Holiday Feast

Episode 078: An Etymological Holiday Feast
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

This year’s holiday episode is all about festivals and feasts — and in particular, midwinter celebrations, the solstice, and the seasons. And we read a couple of Latin poems about drinking — and explore the odd connection between them and a tire company!

The Christmas Cake cocktail

Hesiod’s Works and Days in English

Horace’s Odes in Latin

Horace Odes 1.37 in English

 
 

Bonus Episode: Thorneloe Race Forum

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Bonus Episode: Thorneloe Race Forum
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

This bonus episode contains two talks we gave at our university in November. Mark spoke about “The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Problem: Language and Racism in Medieval Studies” and Aven spoke about “Defining ‘Race’ in the Ancient Mediterranean and Today”.

Google ngrams for collocations of “Anglo-Saxon”:

All English Texts

American English

British English

Whitewashing Ancient Statues: Whiteness, Racism And Color In The Ancient World”, by Sarah Bond

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Episode 77: SoundEdu19, with Scott Lepisto

Episode 077: SoundEdu19 with Scott Lepisto
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

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!

Scott on Twitter

Itinera Podcast

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Episode 76: Do You Believe in Magic?

Episode 076: Do You Believe in Magic?
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

Happy Halloween! This year we’re talking about the etymology and origins of “Magic”, the differences between religion and magic, Greek and Roman spells and curses, and some rather bizarre tales about Virgil & Aristotle.

Our “Magic” video

Cocktail: Black Magic

Religion in the Roman Empire, James B Rives, 2007

Arcana Mundi,Georg Luck, 2006

Virgil in his basket

Virgil in his basket

Tomyris with the head of Cyrus the Great

Tomyris with the head of Cyrus the Great

Judith with the head of Holofernes

Judith with the head of Holofernes

Phyllis riding Aristotle

Phyllis riding Aristotle

Episode 75: Tracking Monsters, with Liz Gloyn

Episode 075: Tracking Monsters, with Liz Gloyn
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

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!

Liz Gloyn

Classically Inclined blog

Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture

Facebook Page for Tracking Classical Monsters

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Episode 74: Medieval Fact & Fiction, with Winston Black

Episode 074: Medieval Fact & Fiction, with Winston Black
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

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

Winston on Twitter

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