The Endless Knot
We discuss etymology, history, literature, science, and language, and the connections between them.
We have a very fun conversation with Dr. Natalie Swain about her work on classical reception and the polar regions — the Arctic and Antarctic — science fiction, and comics. And Natalie and Mark find lots of overlaps and connections between their interests!
“Between the Sheets: Reading the Coverlet as Comics in Catullus 64.” Image [&] Narrative 22.2 (2021)
Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics
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It’s time for a reckoning! Or, to be more accurate, a number of reckonings. We talk to Dr. Stephen Chrisomalis, a linguistic anthropologist who specializes in the anthropology of mathematics and the interaction of language, cognition, and culture, about his new book Reckonings. It’s a fascinating discussion of how we write and represent numbers, and how that’s changed over the years. Why don’t we use Roman numerals any more? It’s more complicated than you might think…
Announcement: Mark will be running another session of his Speakeasy seminar course, The Origins of English: Learning to Think Like an Etymologist, which is open to anyone who’s interested. Registration is now open at Speakeasy.com for the session running on Sunday afternoons (Eastern time) from September 12th October 3rd.
Glossographia (blog)
Twitter: @schrisomalis
Wayne State University faculty page
Reckonings webpage
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We talked to Isobel Williams about her fascinating and illuminating new translation of selected poems of Catullus, illustrated with her drawings of the Japanese art of rope binding, shibari. Our discussion ranges over the connections between the world of shibari and the emotional struggles depicted in Catullus’s poetry, the way translation and learning Latin can feel like being tied up in, and untangling, knots, and much more.
Content Note: fetish, sex, brief mention of sexual violence, discussion of enslavement and use of slavery as metaphor
Blog about drawing shibari (Japanese rope bondage): Boulevardisme
Straight blog about drawing: Drawing from an uncomfortable position
Website: Isobel Williams
Twitter: @otium_Catulle
Instagram: @isobelwilliams2525
From Isobel: “For the online book launch, I compiled a video (>20 minutes) of self and others reading in Latin and English from the book. It starts with Sappho in ancient Greek and ends with Shakespeare, to show the continuity Sappho -> Catullus -> Ovid -> Shakespeare (it contains no Ovid). The video is here 'Catullus: Shibari Carmina' - readings and performances - YouTube”
Link to the book for Canada and US: Catullus: Shibari Carmina | Independent Publishers Group
James Methven’s Precious Asses – highly recommended
Irish poet and mediaevalist Bernard O’Donoghue – Poet, Academic, Medievalist and Literary Critic
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Wall painting - idyllic landscape with porta sacra and tholos - Pompeii (VIII 7 28 - sanctuary of Isis - ekklesiasterion) - Napoli MAN 8558 - 01. Photo by ArchaiOptix
We talk to Dr. Victoria Austen about Roman gardens. What defines a garden? Where were the gardens at Rome, and what were they for? How did Romans think about gardens and gardening, and what roles did they play in literature, philosophy, and the public relations efforts of emperors?
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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Author Don Hitchcock
In part two of our discussion about racism, we talk about ways to respond to the problems in the field, in teaching, scholarship, and more. Thank you to Katherine Blouin, Damian Fleming, Usama Ali Gad, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Asa Mittman, Dimitri Nakassis, Helen Young, and Donna Zuckerberg for their generous contributions of time and thoughtful discussion of these difficult subjects. Please join in the conversation with your thoughts and ideas about how to move the fields forward.
@AllEndlessKnot on Twitter
Episode 44: "Us" & "Them" in the Ancient & Anglo-Saxon Worlds
Episode 51: Race & Racism in Ancient & Medieval Studies, Part One: The Problem
Dr. Katherine Blouin
Everyday Orientalism blog
@isisnaucratis
Dr. Damian Fleming
@FW_Medieval
Dr. Usama Ali Gad
Classics in Arabic blog
@Usamaligad78
Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Classics at the Intersections blog
Sourcebook on Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World
@kataplexis
Dr. Asa Mittman
Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript
Dr. Dimitri Nakassis
Aegean Prehistory blog
@DimitriNakassis
Dr. Helen Young
Race & Popular Fantasy: Habits of Whiteness
@heyouonline
Dr. Donna Zuckerberg
Eidolon
@donnazuck
The Public Medievalist's series on Race, Racism, & the Middle Ages
In the Middle blog (frequently has useful posts on these subjects)
Hold My Mead: A Bibliography For Historians Hitting Back At White Supremacy by Sarah Bond
Medieval People of Color Tumblr
Pharos -- documenting misuse of the Classics
This podcast episode on YouTube
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
What are the problems surrounding race and racism in the fields of Classics and Medieval Studies today? Where did these fields come from, and how does that affect the way we think about the past, and how we construct the present? For this episode (and the next) we interviewed eight scholars and put it together into an exploration of these unfortunately timely topics. Thank you to Katherine Blouin, Damian Fleming, Usama Ali Gad, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Asa Mittman, Dimitri Nakassis, Helen Young, and Donna Zuckerberg for their generous contributions of time and thoughtful discussion of these difficult subjects. In our next episode, we will hear about possible responses to these problems -- in teaching, scholarship, and more.
Episode 44: "Us" & "Them" in the Ancient & Anglo-Saxon Worlds
Dr. Katherine Blouin
Everyday Orientalism blog
@isisnaucratis
Dr. Damian Fleming
@FW_Medieval
Dr. Usama Ali Gad
Classics in Arabic blog
@Usamaligad78
Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Classics at the Intersections blog
Sourcebook on Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World
@kataplexis
Dr. Asa Mittman
Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript
Dr. Dimitri Nakassis
Aegean Prehistory blog
@DimitriNakassis
Dr. Helen Young
Race & Popular Fantasy: Habits of Whiteness
@heyouonline
Dr. Donna Zuckerberg
Eidolon
@donnazuck
The Public Medievalist's series on Race, Racism, & the Middle Ages
In the Middle blog (frequently has useful posts on these subjects)
Hold My Mead: A Bibliography For Historians Hitting Back At White Supremacy by Sarah Bond
Medieval People of Color Tumblr
This podcast episode on YouTube
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
We interview Emily Wilson, whose new translation of the Odyssey for Norton was published in November to great acclaim and critical praise. She tells us about some of her choices in the areas of metre, vocabulary, register, and more, and we discuss the very concept of 'choice' in translation, the notion of a 'faithful' translation, the complicated question of heroic women, and 70's blaxpoitation films!
We talk to Prof. Richard Thomas about his new book about Bob Dylan and the Classics, discussing Latin poetry, intertextuality in music and literature, Dylan's similarities to Catullus and use of Virgil and Ovid, and the unexpected connections between Classical scholarship and research into folk music archives.
Monday, Dec. 4, 2017 at Newtonville Books in Boston, MA
Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017 at the University of Tulsa, in Tulsa, OK
We talk to podcaster and author Mike Duncan about his book, podcasting, Roman history, and more. Thanks to Mike for joining us -- and everyone, go get his book, it's great!
The Storm before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
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.
Susan McMaster's website (with links to poems & list of publications)
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.
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
