Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

Seth Estrin joins me in the Lesche to discuss Classical Athenian funerary sculpture -- the largest single corpus of classical sculpture -- and his emotion-based readings of it. Seth is the author of Grief Made Marble: Funerary Sculpture in Classical Athens (Yale University Press 2024). A couple of images that accompany this episode are on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leschepodcast/ If you&...

Debbie Felton and Carolina López-Ruiz join me to discuss monsters -- and what they mean and represent -- in classical mythology. Debbie is the editor of the new Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth , to which Carolina contributed a chapter on the Sphinx. Ancient sources Apollonius of Rhodes, Medea Avianus/Aesop, " The Satyr and the Traveler " Euripides, Medea Herodotus (esp. 3.3...

Vincent Azoulay and Paulin Ismard join me in the Lesche to discuss their study of the restoration of democracy in Athens in 403 BC, in which they examine the Athenian civil war through the prism of chorality. A translation of their 2020 book Athènes 403: une histoire chorale (Flammarion, Paris) has just appeared in an English translation by Lorna Coing with the title Athens, 403 BC: A Democracy in...

Lindsey Mazurek joins me in the Lesche to discuss Isis worship during the Roman Empire, and how it intersected with and contributed to constructions of Greek identity. Ancient texts Apuleius, Metamorphoses (esp. Book 11) Plutarch, Isis and Osiris Also mentioned Barrett, Caitlin E. (2019)  Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens. Oxford . Bricault, Laurent (2005) Recueil des i...

Sasha-Mae Eccleston joins me in the Lesche to discuss classicizing and chronopolitics in the contemporary United States.  And yes, we talk about that Virgil quotation. Ancient texts Homer, Iliad   Euripides & Seneca, Medea Virgil, Aeneid 9.447 ( nulla dies umquam memori uos eximet aeuo ) Also mentioned (selection) Modern creative works Eric Fischl, " Tumbling Woman " (2001) (sculptur...

Buckle your seatbelt and prepare to clutch your pearls! Walter Scheidel joins me in the Lesche to discuss his case for globalizing the study of ancient history -- and for killing off Classics as we know it. Scheidel is the author of What is Ancient History? , a new manifesto published by Princeton University Press. Mentioned Sheldon Pollock, " Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a...

Scarlett Kingsley joins me in the Lesche to discuss Herodotus' place in the intellectual milieu of the fifth century, the subject of her book Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE. If you enjoy this episode, you might also like Episode 11 on The Sophists , with Josh Billings and Christopher Moore. Ancient texts Herodotus, Histories (especial...

Daniel Mendelsohn joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new translation of Homer's Odyssey , out on April 9 with the University of Chicago Press.  Daniel Mendelsohn's website Ancient texts Homer, Iliad and Odyssey Also mentioned Previous translations of the Odyssey by Richmond Lattimore, Robert Fitzgerald, and Emily Wilson (and Alexander Pope); also Caroline Alexander's Iliad . Prev...

Alex Knodell, co-director of the Small Cycladic Islands Project (SCIP), joins me in the Lesche to reflect on this amazing six-season survey project, which wrapped up last summer.  Alex's co-directors on the project were Demetrios Athanasoulis (Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades) and Žarko Tankosić (University of Bergen). Works mentioned SCIP publications Christy Constantakopoulou, The Da...

Christopher Metcalf joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Three Myths of Kingship in Early Greece and the Ancient Near East , as well as the potential that Ancient Near Eastern texts and literary traditions have to shed light on early Greek ones -- and vice versa. Ancient texts Gilgamesh The Hebrew Bible Various Sumerian and Akkadian texts about Sargon, Dumuzi/Tammuz, and Inanna Iliad , e...

Carol Atack joins me in the Lesche to discuss Plato's civic entanglements (and disenchantments) with his native Athens. Carol is the author of a new biography of Plato titled Plato: A Civic Life (Reaktion Books/University of Chicago Press 2024). The book is the second in a new series, Great Lives of the Ancient World , edited by Paul Cartledge.  Ancient texts Plato: lots and lots Xenophon&apo...

Josh Billings and Christopher Moore join me in the Lesche to discuss the fifth-century BCE 'sophists', the subject of their new edited volume The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists . Works and fragments of the 'sophists' are most easily accessible in: André​ Laks, Glenn W. Most, Early Greek Philosophy. 9 volumes. Loeb Classical Library, 524-532​ . Cambridge, MA; London: Harvar...

Andromache Karanika joins me in the Lesche to discuss how we can detect traces of wedding poetics in early Greek literature, especially poetry (hexamter and lyric). Andromache is the author of Wedding, Gender, and Performance in Ancient Greek Poetry (OUP 2024). Primary texts Iliad , esp. the Teikhoskopeia (Book 3) and the Deception of Zeus (Book 14) Odyssey , esp. the start of Book 6 Homeric Hymn...

James Diggle joins me in the Lesche to discuss the 2021 Cambridge Greek Lexicon (2 vols.) of which he was editor-and-chief. We discuss why it was time for this sort of thing (and why it took 24 years to complete), how to use it, and why it improves on LSJ ... plus, how the team approached translating some of the naughtier words. Some links ' Liddell and Scott ' poem by Thomas Hardy (1843...

John Ma joins me in the Lesche to discuss the longue durée of the Greek polis . John is the author of the new, monumental, and much anticipated book Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity (Princeton 2024). Happy Holidays! About our guest John Ma was born in New York of Chinese parents. He grew up in Geneva, where he studied Greek and La...

( Spoiler alert! This episode is jam-packed with plot spoilers for THE RETURN.) Homeric scholar Barbara Graziosi joins me in the Lesche to discuss Umberto Pasolini's THE RETURN, a film adaptation of the second half of the Odyssey starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope. About our guest Barbara Graziosi is Department Chair and Professor of Classical Studies at Princ...

Emma Greensmith and Tim Whitmarsh join me in the Lesche to discuss how Imperial Greek epic fits into our understanding of Ancient Greek epic as a whole. Emma has just edited the Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Epic , and she was also a member of the research project Greek Epic of the Roman Empire: A Cultural History , which Tim directed. About our guests Emma Greensmith is Associate Professor...

Emily Wilson, acclaimed translator, joins me in the Lesche to discuss the challenges and pleasures of translating the Iliad. We discuss the Greek of two passages in detail: Book 6 lines 482-502 and Book 22 lines 199-204 (lines as in the OCT). Ancient texts Homer's Iliad and Odyssey Plato, Hippias Minor Longinus, On the Sublime (ch. 9)   Also mentioned Karen Emmerich, Literary Translation and...

David M. Pritchard joins me in the Lesche to discuss what appears to have been, in Nicole Loraux's famous words, a "very Athenian invention": the epitaphios logos , or funeral oration given over the war dead at their public burial. Both the Athenian funeral oration and the legacy of Nicole Loraux's pioneering study of it are the subjects of David's new edited volume The At...

Rachel Kousser joins me in the Lesche to discuss Alexander III of Macedon's post-Persepolis campaigns in Asia (330-323 BCE), the subject of her recent book Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great. About our guest Rachel Kousser writes and teaches about Alexander the Great, the destruction of monuments in ancient Greece, and the representation of gen...

Ferdia Lennon joins me in the Lesche to discuss his award-winning and bestselling novel, Glorious Exploits (UK Penguin Fig Tree/US Macmillan 2024), which is set in Syracuse in the aftermath of the Athenian invasion of Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. About our guest Ferdia Lennon was born and raised in Dublin. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin and an MA in Pr...

Charlie Covell joins me in the Lesche to discuss their hit Netflix show KAOS, a modern, dark dramedic take on Ancient Greek mythology. The show, set in something like modern-day Crete (and on Olympus and in Hades), interweaves stories of Prometheus, the Olympian gods, Orpheus and Eurydice, Minos/Ariadne/Theseus/the Minotaur, and Caeneis. Special thanks on this one to Mike Farah & Jess Sze.   A...

Leah Lazar and Christy Constantakopoulou join me in the Lesche to discuss their work on the relationship between Athens and its subject communities (the "allies") during the fifth-century Athenian "empire" (ἀρχή). Leah has a new book out on the subject, Athens and Power in the Fifth Century BC ; Christy’s monograph Dance of the Islands (a favorite of my Classical Greek History...

Yvona Trnka-Amrhein and John Gibert join me in the Lesche to discuss their editio princeps of a newly-discovered papyrus (P.Phil. Nec. 23) containing lines from two of Euripides' fragmentary plays, Ino and Poluidos . The publication, in ZPE, is currently only available in print. The ToC for the issue in which it appears is available here . Information about the conference on 'The New Eur...

Welcome to Lesche, a podcast on new books and ideas in the field of Ancient Greek Studies.  In each episode, we'll be talking to classicists about their latest contributions to the field. We’re going to start by releasing two episodes each month, on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. The first episode will debut on Wednesday, September 11. You can find us on Instagram, @leschepodc...