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Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

Johanna Hanink

In Greek antiquity a lesche (λέσχη) was a spot to hang out and chat. Here Brown University professor Johanna Hanink hosts conversations with fellow Hellenists about their latest work in the field.

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  • 21 episodes
  • fortnightly
  • Avg 54 min
  • English

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  • S3 · E46
    August 26 · 1 hr 8 min

    A Conversation with Nilo Otero, First Assistant Director on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

    Nilo Otero joins me in the Lesche to discuss his work as First Assistant Director on Christopher Nolan's 2026 film The Odyssey. Works mentioned Translations of The Odyssey by Richmond Lattimore, Robert Fagles, Peter Green, and Robert Fitzgerald. “Postscript," in The Odyssey. Trans. by Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (1967): pp. 467-510. On the difficulty -- for translators and filmmakers alike -- of envisioning the axe-setup in the "Contest of the Bow" see: Winkler, Martin M. (2024) Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination. Cambridge. (Ch. 11 "Arrow and Axes in the Odyssey; or, The Case of the Insoluble Enigma") About our guest Nilo Otero is a first assistant director known for managing major Hollywood productions. Otero studied English literature, and Classics, at Cornell University, where he was also an All-American Fencer. After graduating, he entered the film industry and completed the Directors Guild of America training program. Otero served as first assistant director on films such as Seven and The Last Samurai, before becoming a frequent collaborator with Christopher Nolan on blockbusters including Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Oppenheimer and, most recently, The Odyssey. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E45
    July 1 · 48 min

    Migration and the Early Greek World

    Naoise Mac Sweeney joins me in the Lesche to discuss her ERC-funded multi-year project "Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World" (MIGMAG). Read more about the project here. The first major output is a volume titled Local Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World (c.1200-550 BCE), edited by MIGMAG team members Naoíse Mac Sweeney, Jana Mokrišová, and Francesco Quondam. Naoise refers briefly to Euripides' tragedy Ion in the episode. The book she recommends at the end of the episode is Richard Powers' 2018 novel The Overstory. About our guest Naoíse Mac Sweeney is Professor of Classical Archaeology (Greek) at the University of Vienna. Her work focuses on the construction of identity and cultural interaction in the Iron Age to Classical Greek world, with a particular focus on Anatolia. A subsidiary strand of her research considers the intersection of modern politics and reception. She is the author of books including Community Identity and Archaeology (2011), Foundation Myths and Politics in Ancient Ionia (2013), Troy: Myth, City, Icon (2018) and, most recently, The West: A New History of an Old Idea (2023). ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E44
    June 17 · 51 min

    Dream Interpretation, from Homer to Aristotle

    Mirjam E. Kotwick joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book The Ancient Interpretation of Dreams: Early Greek Hermeneutics and Its Sources, which is hot off the (Princeton University) press. For more on Katerina Evangelatou's 2015 production of Rhesus, as part of the Epidaurus-Athens Theatre Festival, see this article by Scott Andrew Cally in Didascalia. Ancient works Homer, Odyssey: Penelope's dream in Book 19 Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (Clytemnestra's dream) Aristophanes, Wasps Dissoi Logoi Antiphon's lost work on dream interpretation Hippocratic Corpus de Victu / On Regimen Derveni Papyrus Aristotle, On Dreams and On Divination in Sleep Artemidorus, Oneirokritika Modern works Billings, Joshua, and Moore, Christopher (eds.). 2023. The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists. Cambridge University Press. Ford, Andrew. 2003. The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece. Princeton University Press (mentioned for concept of "critical scenes") About our guest Mirjam E. Kotwick is Associate Professor of Classics at Princeton University. She has published articles and monographs on Greek philosophy and literature and their textual traditions, including Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Text of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Der Papyrus von Derveni. Her most recent book is The Ancient Interpretation of Dreams: Early Greek Hermeneutics and Its Sources (Princeton University Press, 2026). ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E43
    June 3 · 47 min

    Luck (and Lucklessness) in Ancient Greek Thought

    Daniel Schillinger joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Luckless: The Idea of Luck in Ancient Greek Thought, which recently appeared with Oxford University Press. Find out more about Daniel's work here: https://www.danielschillinger.com/ Ancient authors and texts Sophocles, Oedipus Rex Euripides, Trojan Women (and Hippolytus) Thucydides Aristotle, Physics, Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics (Daniel's book also contains a chapter on the Eudemian Ethics) Other works/authors Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy; The Prince Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy Arlene Saxenhouse, work on tragedy (see esp. her 1988 "The tyranny of reason in the world of the polis, in The American Political Science Review 82: 1261-1275) H.P. Stahl, Thucydides: Man's Place in History Leo Strauss, On Thucydides' War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians," chapter in The City and Man Bernard Williams, Moral Luck Adam Parry's scholarship on Thucydides And others: Arendt, Freud, Kant, Nietzsche, Rawls... About our Guest Daniel Schillinger is a Lecturer in Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches in the Directed Studies Program and offers seminars on Greek political thought. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Yale Center for Civic Thought and a recipient of the Lux et Veritas teaching prize. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E42
    May 20 · 55 min

    Stasis: Political Violence in Classical Greece

    Scott Lawin Arcenas joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book, Political Violence in Ancient Greece: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Stasis, 500-301 BCE (Cambridge University Press 2026). Ancient texts (select) Homer, Odyssey and Iliad Alcaeus Solon Herodotus, esp. the account of the stasis in Chios Thucydides, esp. the account of the stasis at Corcyra (Book 3) Xenophon, Hellenika, esp. the account of stasis in Elis Aeneas Tacticus, Stratagems [Aristotle], Athenaion Politeia Modern bibliography mentioned Carawan, Edwin. 2013. The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Driscoll, Eric. 2016. “Stasis and Reconciliation: Politics and Law in Fourth-Century Greece.” Chiron 46: 119–155. Gehrke, Hans-Joachim. 1985. Stasis: Untersuchungen zu den inneren Kriegen in den griechischen Staaten des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. München: C. H. Beck. Gray, Benjamin. 2013. “Justice or Harmony? Reconciliation after Stasis at Dikaia and the Fourth-Century BC Polis.” Revue des Études Anciennes 115 (2): 369–401. Hansen, Mogens H., and Thomas H. Nielsen, eds. 2004. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Loraux, Nicole. 2002. The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens. New York: Zone Books. (Originally published 1997 as La cité divisée: L’oubli dans la mémoire d’Athènes. Paris: Payot & Rivages). Ma, John. 2024. Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Simonton, Matt. 2026. Ancient Greek Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wees, Hans van. 2008. “‘Stasis, Destroyer of Men’: Mass, Elite, Political Violence and Security in Archaic Greece.” In Sécurité Collective et Ordre Public Dans Les Sociétés Anciennes, edited by Hans van Wees, Cédric Brélaz, and Pierre Ducrey, 1–39. Genève: Fondation Hardt. About our guest Scott Lawin Arcenas is a historian and classicist who specializes in the history of democracy and political violence. His first book, Political Violence in Ancient Greece: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Stasis, 500-301 BCE (Cambridge University Press) reveals the nature, frequency, and intensity of political violence in fifth- and fourth-century Greek city-states. He holds degrees from Princeton, Cambridge, and Stanford and is currently an associate professor of history and classics at the University of Montana. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E41
    May 6 · 56 min

    Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome

    Content warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of childbirth complications -- including maternal and infant mortality -- and of how such complications were handled by ancient midwives and physicians. There are graphic references to surgical procedures. Tara Mulder joins me in the Lesche to discuss her brand new book, A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome (University of California Press 2026). You can read a Q&A with Tara on the UC Press blog here. Tara's personal website: taramulder.com Ancient texts/authors Hippocratic corpus Galen of Pergamon Soranus of Ephesus Agrippina the Younger's lost memoirs Modern scholarship Bonell Freidin, Anna. 2024. Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Ancient Rome. University of Michigan Press. Hug, Angela. 2023. Fertility Ideology and the Cultural Politics of Reproduction at Rome. Brill. About our guest Tara Mulder is assistant professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an affiliation in Gender and Women's Studies. She is the editor of the forthcoming volume, A Cultural History of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Antiquity. As the daughter of a home birth midwife, she has assisted in over two dozen births. More of her writing on pregnancy, childbirth, abortion, medicine, gender, and sexuality in antiquity can be found at taramulder.com. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E40
    April 22 · 59 min

    A Social and Economic History of the Theater to 300 BC

    Eric Csapo and Peter Wilson join me in the Lesche to discuss their three-volume A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC (Cambridge University Press). Volume 1, The Theatre Festivals of Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary, appeared earlier this year. Volume 2, Theatre Beyond Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary, came out in 2020. Volume 3, on theater personnel and individuals associated with the theater, is in the works. Ancient texts (many are mentioned) Aristophanes, Acharnians (Dicaeopolis' celebration of a private "rural" Dionysia) Several ancient plays! Plato, Ion and Laws Inscriptional records for dramatic festivals (IG II2 2318-2325; see Millis and Olson's 2012 edition). These include the "Fasti" (IG II2 2318). Modern works Boeckh, A. 1817 Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener (The Public Economy of Athens). Berlin. Csapo, E. and N. Wilson. 1995. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. First published 1953; 2nd edn. 1968; revised edn. by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis (1988). About our guests Eric Csapo is Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. He is co-author of The Context of Ancient Drama (1995), Theories of Mythology (2005), and Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theatre (2010), as well as co-editor of various volumes on ancient theatre history. Peter Wilson is William Ritchie Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is the author of The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: the Chorus, the City and the Stage (2000) and the editor or co-editor of The Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century (2014), Dithyramb in Context (2013), Music and the Muses: the Culture of ‘Mousike’ in the Classical Athenian City (2004) and Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies (2007). ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E39
    April 8 · 48 min

    (Translating) the Scholia to the Iliad

    Bill Beck joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new translation of the vetera scholia to Iliad Book 1-2: The Ancient Scholia to Homer's Iliad: A Translation, Volume 1 (Cambridge 2025). The book is the first in a series dedicated to translation of the Iliadic scholia. For an episode on the Iliad itself, and its translation, see Lesche episode 1.6, "Translating the Iliad, with Emily Wilson" (by far the most popular Lesche episode ever!). Ancient works Homer's Iliad (and Odyssey) The various scholia traditions "Mythographus Homericus" Modern bibliography & references Dickey, E. 2007. Ancient Greek scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Erbse, H. 1969-1988. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia vetera). Berlin: de Gruyter. Nünlist, R. 2011. The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van Thiel, H. 2014. Scholia D in Iliadem. Cologne: Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek. Wolf, F. A. 1795. Prolegomena to Study of Homer. See Anthony Grafton's 2016 translation (the original is in Latin), published by Princeton University Press. About our guest Bill Beck is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Indiana University. His research focuses on Archaic Greek epic and ancient Homeric scholarship. He is the co-editor of The Ancient Scholia to Homer’s Iliad: Exegesis and Interpretation (Oxford, 2021) and the author of The Ancient Scholia to Homer’s Iliad: A Translation, Volume 1 (Cambridge, 2025). He is currently completing a monograph on the Iliad’s representation of the first nine years of the Trojan War, provisionally entitled Ten Years in Troy, Fifty-One Days at Ilios: The Iliad and the Trojan War. N.B. The podcast Bill recommends at the end of the episode is called Totalus Rankium. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E38
    March 25 · 50 min

    Seal-Impressions (typoi) and Ancient Image Making

    Art historian Verity Platt joins me in the Lesche to discuss her much-anticipated new book Epistemic Impressions: Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text (Oxford 2026). On May 11, the Queen Mary University of London Imagination Research Network will be hosting a "launch symposium" to celebrate the book's publication. Information and tickets are available here. The novel that Verity recommends at the end of the podcast is When the Museum is Closed, by Emi Yagi. Read an excerpt here, in Yuki Tejima's translation. Ancient sources Dionysius of Halicarnassus, various treatises (see Verity's Ch. 5) for the term archetypon (and 'style' as charaktēr) Herodotus 3.40-43, on the "seal" of Polycrates Mesomedes 9, "Ekphrasis of a sponge" (see here on Mesomedes, a Hadrianic-era poet) Philostratus, for using languge relating to "impressions" and typoi Plato's, esp. Republic, Phaedrus, Timaeus and on mimesis Pliny the Elder, Natural History book 35 (103 on the story of Protogenes and the sponge) Posidippus, various epigrams, esp. AB 13-15 (Verity reads AB 14) Theophrastus, On Stones Modern bibliography/references The work of Charles Sanders Peirce (American scientist, mathematician and semiotician) on the "index" and "indexical reference" Platt, V. J. 2016. ‘The Artist as Anecdote: Creating Creators in Ancient Texts and Modern Art History’. In J. Hanink and R. Fletcher, (eds). 2016. Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, Artists, and Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 274–304. Pollitt, J. J. 1974. The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology. New Haven: Yale University Press. Stoichita, V. I. 1997. A Short History of the Shadow. London: Reaktion Books. Image: Joseph Wright's "The Corinthian Maid" (oil on canvas, 1782-84), in the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.). About our guest Verity Platt is a professor of Classics and History of Art at Cornell University, where she is also co-curator of the plaster cast collection and directs the Humanities Scholar Program for undergraduates. She is the author of Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature, and Religion (Oxford 2011), and the newly published Epistemic Impressions: Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text (Oxford 2026). She is also an editor of the Classical Receptions Journal. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E37
    March 11 · 52 min

    Time and Ancient Textiles

    Marie-Louise Nosch, former director of the Centre for Textile Research at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen, joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Time of Textiles in Ancient Greece (DeGruyter 2025). If you like this episode, you might also enjoy Lesche episode 1.10, "Wedding Poetics in Ancient Greek Literature," with Andromache Karanika. Ancient texts Homer, Iliad and Odyssey (lots of weaving scenes) Hesiod, on the creation of Pandora (Theogony and Works and Days) Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (the "recognition scene" also parodied in Euripides' Electra) Euripides, Ion (on Creusa's "sampler" as recognition token) Thucydides 1.6 (on ancient Ionian dress) The "Old Oligarch"/[Xenophon] Constitution of the Athenians 1.10 (on the indistinguishability of free and enslaved persons on the basis of dress in Athens) Modern bibliography Andersson Strand, Eva and Mannering, Ulla. 2021. “Sailmaking. A Gigantic Collective Undertaking”, in Jeanette Varberg and Peter Pentz (eds.), The Raid. Join the Vikings, 29 – 44. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark. Brøns, Cecilie. 2016. Gods and Garments: Textiles in Greek Sanctuaries in the 7th to the 1st Centuries BC. Oxbow. Bücher, Karl. 1896. Arbeit und Rhythmus. Leipzig: Teubner. Karanika, Andromache. 2014. Voices at Work: Women, Performance, and Labor in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pantelia, Maria C. 1993. “Spinning and Weaving. Ideas of Domestic Order in Homer”, The American Journal of Philology 114 no. 4, 493 – 501. About our guest Marie Louise Nosch studied Ancient Greek History in Nancy and Naples and completed her doctoral thesis at the University of Salzburg. Her special field of research is Aegean epigraphy and Mycenaean Linear B inscriptions, as well as ancient textile production. She was the Director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research (2005-2016) at the University of Copenhagen and has been Professor of Ancient Greek History at the University of Copenhagen since 2011. She was elected to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2017 and served as President from 2020-2024. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E36
    February 25 · 48 min

    The Doloneia (Iliad Book 10)

    Christos C. Tsagalis joins me in the Lesche to discuss the Doloneia, i.e., Iliad 10, which is the topic of both Christos' monograph The Homeric Doloneia: Evolution and Shaping of Iliad 10 (Oxford 2024) and his chapter in Jonathan Ready's recent edited volume, the Oxford Critical Guide to Homer's Iliad (Oxford 2024). The Doloneia/Iliad 10 is traditionally divided into two sections: the Nyktegersia (the 'night watch' or nocturnal council scene, lines 1-179) and the spy-mission itself. Bibliography Danek, Georg. (1988) Studien zur Dolonie. Vienna. Dué, Casey and Mary Ebbott (2010. Iliad 10 and the Poetics of Ambush: a Multitext Edition with Essays and Commentary. Hellenic Studies 39. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University Press. Also mentioned Homeric scholarship by Gregory Nagy and his pupils The Parry-Lord Hypothesis (of oral composition) About our guest Christos C. Tsagalis is Professor of Ancient Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Ordinal Member of the Academia Europaea, Corresponding Member of the Cypriot Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, Member of the Governing Board of the Center for the Greek Language in Thessaloniki. He is the Co-Editor of the Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic (Brill), the series of monographs Key Perspectives on Classical Research (Walter de Gruyter), Assistant Editor of the series Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes (Walter de Gruyter), and Member of the scientific board of the series of classical commentaries Aris and Philips. Ηe specializes in Early Greek Epic Poetry. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E35
    February 11 · 54 min

    Reappraising the Choruses of Greek Tragedy

    Rosa Andújar joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book, Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2025). Tragedies mentioned Aeschylus Agamemnon (chorus fragmentation) Seven Against Thebes (use of semi-choruses) Suppliant Women ("choral swarm" with multiple groups) Sophocles Oedipus Rex (actor-chorus interaction) Euripides Phaethon ( "augmentation" and secondary choruses) Trojan Women (chorus entering in fragmented small groups) Hippolytus ( subsidiary chorus appears before the main chorus) Orestes (unusual choral divisions) Suppliant Women (exceptional choral activity) Other ancient texts Aristotle, Poetics (mentioned for lack of interest in the chorus) Aristophanes, Birds (for having a 'differentiated' chorus) Plutarch, On Listening (de Audiendo) 45e-f (Euripides training a chorus; a chorus member bursts out laughing) Antiphon 6 (On the Chorus Boy: I don't mention it by name, but this is the speech regarding the death of a choreute by performance enhancing drugs) Modern works Azoulay, Vincent and Paulin Ismard. 2020. Athènes 403: une histoire chorale. Paris / 2025. Athenes 403 BC: A Democracy in Crisis, trans. Lorna Coing. Cambridge. Carlson, Marvin. 2003. The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. Ann Arbor. Diggle, James. 1970. Euripides: Phaethon. Cambridge. duBois, Page. 2022. Democratic Swarms: Ancient Comedy and the Politics of the People. Chicago. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (on choral powerlessness/inertness) Halliwell, Stephen. 1998. Aristotle's Poetics. Bristol/Chicago. Jackson, Lucy. 2019. The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE. Cambridge. Sansone, David. 2016. "The Size of the Tragic Chorus," Phoenix 70: 233-54. Uhlig, Anna. 2019. Theatrical Reenactment in Pindar and Aeschylus. 2019. About our guest Rosa Andújar is Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. She has published widely on Greek drama in its fifth-century Athenian context as well as on its modern global reception, particularly across the Americas. She is the author of Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2025) and the editor of The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro (Methuen Drama, 2020), which won the 2020 London Hellenic Prize. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E34
    January 28 · 48 min

    The Enchanted World of Late Antiquity

    Michael Satlow joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity, which will be published on February 3 by Princeton University Press. Resources "Lived Religion Project" at the University of Erfurt's Max Weber Institute If you're new to Late Antiquity, the foundational work is Peter Brown's 1971 The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750. It's been reissued in various editions, including a 2024 illustrated one from Thames & Hudson (relatively affordable!). I mention Philogelos joke 203 in the episode introduction. About our guest Michael Satlow is Professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies at Brown University. A historian of religion in antiquity, his work explores how Jews, Christians, and others experienced the sacred in everyday life. His new book, An Enchanted World, draws on inscriptions and material culture to reveal a shared religious landscape in Late Antiquity, one filled with gods, angels, demons, and divine presence. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E33
    January 14 · 50 min

    The Influence of Plato's Timaeus: Beauty & Creation

    Piero Boitani joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Timaeus in Paradise: Metaphors and Beauty from Plato to Dante and Beyond (Princeton University Press 2025). Ancient texts Hebrew Bible, Genesis Plato: Timaeus, Phaedrus, Symposium, Apology Aristotle: Nicomachaean Ethics Lucretius, De Rerum Natura Ovid, Metamorphoses Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation (de Opificio mundi: treatise on the Genesis creation narrative) New Testament: Acts of the Apostles Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime Calcidius, Latin translation of much of Timaeus (4th century CE) Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, mystical treatises (c. 500 CE) Later sites of reception & influence In Literature and Philosophy Johannes Scotus Eriugena (John "the Scot"), translation of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (9th century) Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Divine Names (1260s) Dante, Paradiso (early 1300s) Marsilio Ficino's work on Plato and Timaeus (15th century) Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), scientific treatises Alfred North Whitehad, Process and Reality (1929) Ezra Pound, Cantos (1915-1959) In Visual Art and Architecture Crypt of San Magno in Anagni (11th century) Sculptures of Chartres Cathedral (12th century) Botticelli, "Birth of Venus" (mid-1480s) Raphael, "School of Athens" (1509-11, Apostolic Palace, Vatican) and Chigi Chapel (1510s, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome) Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel (1508-1512) About our guest Piero Boitani is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of Rome “Sapienza.” A Fellow of the British Academy, the Medieval Academy of America, the Accademia dei Lincei, and the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, in 2016 he received the Balzan Prize for Comparative Literature. He is chairman of the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla and general editor of its series of Greek and Latin Writers. His most recent books include Il grande racconto dei classici (Bologna, Il Mulino, 2024); «Reconnaître est un Dieu». L’anagnorisis dans la littérature occidentale (Paris, Garnier, 2025); Timaeus in Paradise: Metaphors and Beauty from Plato to Dante and Beyond (Princeton University Press 2025). A new book, The Five Elements-I cinque elementi, with a preface by Stephen Greenblatt, will be published by Mondadori, in the Lo Specchio series, in February 2026. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E32
    Dec 31, 2025 · 52 min

    The Life (and Times) of Diogenes 'the Cynic'

    Inger Kuin joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic (Basic Books 2025). Ancient sources Aristotle, Politics 1.3-7 (on 'natural' slavery) Diogenes Laertius, 2.6, Life of Diogenes Plutarch, Life of Alexander 14 (on the 'get out of my sun' episode) Xenophon, Anabasis 5-6 (on Sinope, Diogenes' birthplace) Other Diogenes testimonia from a variety of sources For an accessible English-language collection of testimonia for Diogenes, see Robert Dobbin's The Cynic Philosophers, from Diogenes to Julian (Penguin Classics, 2012). About our guest Inger Kuin is a researcher, writer, and teacher focused on the intellectual history of ancient Greece and Rome. She is Associate Professor of Classics General Faculty at the University of Virginia. Originally from The Netherlands, she splits her time between Charlottesville (VA) and Rotterdam, and publishes both in English and in Dutch. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E31
    Dec 17, 2025 · 52 min

    Enchantment Technologies of Ancient Greek Religion

    Tatiana Bur joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge University Press 2025). Ancient texts Homer, Iliad 18 (on Hephaestus and his self-moving tripods) Many Athenian tragedies and comedies that made use of the μηχανή or κράδη (in comedy) Aristotle, Poetics (on the theatrical ‘crane’/μηχανή) The Aristotelian/Peripatetic work Mechanical Questions (Μηχανικά) Philo of Byzantium, Μηχανική Σύνταξη Works on mechanics by Hero of Alexandria Polybios, History 12.13, on the mechanical snail in the procession at Athens Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 2.5, on Herodes Atticus’ mechanical Panathenaic ship Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 196a-203c, on the πομπή of Ptolemy Philadelphus Modern bibliography Eric Csapo's work on ancient theater Alfred Gell’s work on art agency, particularly "technologies of enchantment" Susan Harvey, 2006. Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination. Berkeley, Ca. Verity Platt, 2011. Facing the Gods: Epiphany in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature, and Religion. Cambridge. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, 1997. Toward a History of Epistemic Things: Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube. Stanford, CA. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E30
    Dec 3, 2025 · 59 min

    Book Reviewing in Classics, with Clifford Ando (BMCR) and Mary Beard (the TLS)

    Mary Beard, Classics editor at the Times Literary Supplement, and Clifford Ando, senior editor of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, join me in the Lesche to discuss the state of Classics reviewing today. How do the TLS and BMCR assign appropriate reviewers? What makes for a good review? What's the line between critique and nastiness? Why are reviews these days so often lacking in susbtantive criticism? What do editors wish review authors knew or would consider before writing a review? Some bibliography Clifford Ando, "BMCR: A view under the hood." Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2022.11.26. (Read all the papers from the 30th anniversary celebration of BMCR here. Several deal with book reviewing.) Mary Beard, Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations. Liveright 2013. (See especially the Afterword, "Reviewing Classics".) Daniel Mendelsohn, "A Critic's Manifesto," The New Yorker, August 28, 2012. About our guests Clifford Ando teaches Classics and History at the University of Chicago. His work focuses on the histories of law, religion, and government in the ancient world. He is the author, editor, and translator of some 20 books, and he has served as an editor, associate editor, or senior editor of Bryn Mawr Classical Review for not quite twenty years. Mary Beard is professor emerita of classics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College, and professor of Ancient Literature at the Royal Academy. She is also the classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, a fellow of the British Academy, and an international member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of more than twenty books on the ancient world. Her latest book, Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old, is due out in spring 2026 with Profile Books (UK) and the University of Chicago Press (USA). ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E29
    Nov 19, 2025 · 54 min

    The Ancient Shore

    Harvard University historian Paul Kosmin joins me in the Lesche to discuss his recent book The Ancient Shore (Harvard University Press 2024), winner of the American Historical Association's 2025 Prize in History Prior to CE 1000. Works mentioned Agatharchides of Cnidus, On the Erythraean Sea (2nd C. BC) Philip de Loutherbourg, "Shipwreck" (painting, 1793). Demuth, Bathsheba. 2019. Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait. W. W. Norton. Dening, Gregory Moore. 1980. Islands and Beaches: Discourse on a Silent Land, Marquesas, 1774–1880. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. About our guest Paul Kosmin completed his undergraduate degree at Oxford and earned a PhD in Ancient History from Harvard University in 2012. He was appointed an Assistant Professor in Harvard's Classics Department in 2012, was tenured in 2019, and in 2020 became the Philip J. King Professor of Ancient History, where he currently serves as Interim Chair. His research focuses on the political and cultural history of the ancient Greek world, concentrating on the globalizing and colonial Hellenistic period, and now includes an environmentally-oriented turn. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E28
    Nov 5, 2025 · 51 min

    The Life of Demosthenes

    James Romm joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new biography Demosthenes: Democracy's Defender. The book is a part of Yale University Press's Ancient Lives series, of which James is also the editor. James's author website Ancient texts mentioned Demosthenes, speeches Aeschines, speeches About our guest James Romm is an author, reviewer, and the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annandale, NY. He specializes in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization. His reviews and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, the London Review of Books, the Daily Beast, and other venues. He has held the Guggenheim Fellowship (1999-2000), the Birkelund Fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library (2010-11), and a Biography Fellowship at the Leon Levy Center of the City University of New York (2014-15). ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

  • S2 · E27
    Oct 22, 2025 · 48 min

    "Bilingual" Ionic Column Capitals

    Sam Holzman joins me in the Lesche to discuss "bilingual" Ionic column capitals (i.e., column capitals that combined an archaic convex style of relief carving with a more modern concave style). These are the subject of his book Retrospective Columns: Ionic Capitals and Perceptions of the Past in Greek Architecture, which just came out with Princeton University Press. Ancient source Vitruvius, de Architectura, esp. Books 3 & 4. Modern works Architectural drawings in James Stuart and Nicholas Revett's Antiquities of Athens and Julien-David Le Roy's Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce. Alzinger, Wilhelm. 1967. "Alt-Ephesos: Topographie und Architektur." Das Altertum 13.1: 20-44. Hanink, Johanna. Lycurgan Athens and the Making of Classical Tragedy. Cambridge 2014. Rudwick, Martin J. S. 1976. "The Emergence of a Visual Language for Geological Science 1760—1840," History of Science 14.3: 149-95. Schmidt-Dounas, Barbara. 2005. "Frühe Peripteraltempel in Nordgriechenland." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 120: 107-41. About our guest Sam Holzman is an assistant professor in the Department of Art & Archaeology and the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. He received his BA from Brown, where his senior thesis advisor in Classics was none other than Professor Hanink! He also received an MPhil from Cambridge and PhD from UPenn. He has excavated in Greece and Turkey and now leads the architectural research team of American Excavations Samothrace. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

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