I think the first podcast ever? über academic but Melvyn Bragg is sharp as a tack.
Feb 29, 2024
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the in our time podcast discusses heaps of classics with a panel of experts, great way to hear what academics have been thinking about texts and the key themes they draw out. it's really chaotic because they have to get through a lot in a short time and the host (melvyn bragg) is always pressing them to give a straight answer.
the secret life of books podcast is also really good, they discuss the backstory and context of classics and how they contribute the books overall identity, but also its legacy.
i'm sure there's heaps more out there but these two are quite in depth when it comes to easily available literary analysis !
Nov 21, 2024
amazingly calming to spend 40 minutes listening to three experts talk about anything from tang dynasty poetry to supernovae under melvin bragg’s sure handed and only slightly cantankerous guidance.
Feb 14, 2024
My favorite classicist is William Arrowsmith, and he has a lot of, if not comforting, let’s call them useful things to say about Western society throughout this interview. I wish this was anything close to what most podcasts are today.
Some favorite excerpts:
“A society that still produces human faces”
“Americanization is a word that simply means there are problems that we’ve confronted before they’ve come here.”
30:18: “The question is, how is this [sudden overpresence of leisure] time to be used?”
Response: “in somma,” [young man laughs] [irony, heavy, so goddamn witty — means “honestly” in Italian]
Soft “questo cazzo” from young man in the background
“Look, what I’m trying to say is that I believe like the devil in the humanity and the life [thumping the table gently for emphasis] and the vigor of the Classics, and it seems to me they have a great deal to say to any Italian who would bother listening to them; there’s a real tradition there, and nothing to me is more heartrending than the spectacle of a writer who, out of hostility—and understandable hostility—to the old humanistic tradition of Italy, cuts himself off from that heritage. …But not just a cutting-off, it’s the problem of how to admit to the benefits of a vital culture. Those who have been essentially disenfranchised for centuries, they are either going to establish a new culture which will appall all of us who love the past and what it created, or, uh … or Italy will go the way of, you know, France, and England, and all those other countries. [laughter from the group; recording ends]”
“…[noise on the microphone, perhaps a cut for food arriving? Silverware in the bg after pickup] Only because, you can only forgive something you love. It gives you so much, that when it fails to give it to you any longer, the only possible response is falling out of love, or forgiving.”
Mar 1, 2025
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