Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

Writer and writing coach Helen Betya Rubinstein joins me in the Lesche to talk about her new book Feels Like Trouble: Provocations on Writing, Teaching & Power, which came out in October with the University of New Orleans Press. Helen is also a writing coach who works with writers in all genres, including academics.Helen's website: link hereConcepts mentioned Psychic Distance (John Gardner in The Art of Fiction): Framework mapping the five levels of narrative intimacy between the narrator, character, and reader.   Writing with the Door Closed vs. Open (Stephen King): The rule of thumb that initial drafting should be done privately for yourself ("door closed"), while revision opens the work up to outside feedback ("door open").   Critical Response Process (Liz Lerman): A structured, four-step feedback methodology designed to give creators control and agency over the critique they receive.   Traditional Workshop Model / "Cone of Silence" (Frank Conroy / Iowa Writers' Workshop): Classic MFA workshop structure where writers sit around a table and the author must remain completely silent ("under a cone of silence") while peers critique the text. Read Conroy's essay "The Writer's Workshop" here   Morning Pages (Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way): The daily practice of writing three pages of stream-of-consciousness longhand prose first thing in the morning to bypass self-censorship.   Unconditional Positive Regard (Stanlay Standal/Carl Rogers): Psychological concept (borrowed here for reading and coaching) centered on offering total, non-judgmental acceptance and support to foster growth.   Time Affluence (Tim Kasser / Alexis Fecteau; popularized by Laurie Santos et al.): The concept of subjective psychological abundance regarding time, contrasting with "time impoverishment" or chronic time scarcity.  About our guestHelen Betya Rubinstein is the author of Feels Like Trouble: Provocations on Writing, Teaching & Power and The Case Against Rubinstein: An Anti-Fiction (forthcoming 2027). Her essays and criticism have been published in Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review Daily, and frequently in Literary Hub and Jewish Currents. She is also the author of a booklet of lyric fictions, Because Sex Is a Story & Sex Is a Song. Helen is a writing coach in ongoing practice with writers across genre. ________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

Richard Hunter and Rebecca Laemmle join me in the Lesche to discuss their new commentary on Odyssey Book 11, in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics ("Green and Yellow") commentary series. Ancient textsHomer, Odyssey (general) and Iliad (esp. Book 9 and Book 23)   Aristophanes, Frogs   Plato /Platonic eschatological accounts/underworlds, esp. the Myth of Er in in Republic 10  Timon of Phlius (Hellenistic philosopher)Vergil, AeneidSeneca, MedeaLucian, Dialogues of the Dead   Pausanias, Description of Greece (description of Polygnotus' Nekuia painting at Delphi; view a reconstruction here)Homeric scholiaOther worksAlbert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"Christopher Nolan's The OdysseyAbout our guestsRichard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. He has published extensively in the fields of Greek and Latin literature; his recent books include The Measure of Homer (Cambridge, 2018), (with Rebecca Laemmle) Euripides, Cyclops (Cambridge, 2020), and Greek Epitaphic Poetry: A Selection (Cambridge, 2022), both in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series. His essays are collected in On Coming After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception (2008) and The Layers of the Text (2021). He is a Fellow of the British Academy.Rebecca Laemmle is Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College. Her award-winning doctoral thesis was published as Poetik des Satyrspiels (2013). She co-edited, with Richard Hunter, Euripides, Cyclops (Cambridge, 2020) in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series and has published widely in both English and German on ancient literature and its reception.________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

Andrej Petrovic joins me in the Lesche to discuss a new verse-inscription from Teos (in Turkey) discovered in 2013 by Musa Kadıoğlu, director of the excavations at Teos. Together with Mustafa Adak (Professor of Greek Language and Literature, University of Akdeniz) and Christian Marek (University of Zurich), Andrej has co-authored a monograph with edition, commentary, and interpretative essays on the inscription (publication details TBD).Ankara University press release announcing the discovery (in Turkish)Harvard Gazette article on the new monumental portrait statue from SardiaAmerican Society for Greek and Roman Epigraphy (ASGLE)Ancient authors/works Theognis of Megara/the Thegonidea, esp. lines 19-20 (the σφραγίς, 'seal') and line 460, πολλάκις ἐκ νυκτῶν ἄλλον ἔχει λιμένα. Semonides of AmorgosThe "Sosthenes inscription"The "Mnesiepes inscription"The "Salmacis poem"/"Pride of Halicarnassus"Modern scholarshipAdak, M. and Thonemann, P. 2022. Teos and Abdera: Two Cities in Peace and War. Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents. Oxford University Press. Bernsdorff, H. 2021. Anacreon of Teos: Testimonia and Fragments. Oxford University Press. Bowie, E. 2012. "An early chapter in the history of the Theognidea"West, M. L. 1974. Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, ch. III "On the history of the Theognidean Sylloge"See also esp. Diskin Clay's 2004 Archilochus Heros: The Cult of Poets in the Greek Polis (Center for Hellenic Studies), which contains many translated ancient testimonia. BMCR review here.About our guestAndrej Petrovic is a specialist in Greek literature, epigraphy, and religion. Born in Yugoslavia and trained in Serbia and Germany, he held academic positions in Munich, Heidelberg, and Durham (UK) before becoming Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia. He edits Greece and Rome and serves as president-elect of the American Society for Greek and Latin Epigraphy. He has published books on Simonidean verse-inscriptions, co-authored (with Ivana Petrovic) Inner Purity and Pollution in Greek Religion, and written some 50 articles on archaic and classical epigram and text materiality. He has held Humboldt, Mellon, and CHS fellowships. ________________________________Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!Podcast art: Daniel BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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 guestNaoíse 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 BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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 19Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (Clytemnestra's dream)Aristophanes, WaspsDissoi LogoiAntiphon's lost work on dream interpretationHippocratic Corpus de Victu / On RegimenDerveni PapyrusAristotle, On Dreams and On Divination in SleepArtemidorus, OneirokritikaModern worksBillings, 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 guestMirjam 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 BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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 textsSophocles, Oedipus RexEuripides, Trojan Women (and Hippolytus)ThucydidesAristotle, Physics, Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics (Daniel's book also contains a chapter on the Eudemian Ethics)Other works/authorsMachiavelli, Discourses on Livy; The PrinceMartha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and PhilosophyArlene 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 HistoryLeo Strauss, On Thucydides' War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians," chapter in The City and ManBernard Williams, Moral LuckAdam Parry's scholarship on ThucydidesAnd others: Arendt, Freud, Kant, Nietzsche, Rawls...About our GuestDaniel 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 BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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 IliadAlcaeusSolonHerodotus, esp. the account of the stasis in ChiosThucydides, esp. the account of the stasis at Corcyra (Book 3)   Xenophon, Hellenika, esp. the account of stasis in ElisAeneas Tacticus, Stratagems[Aristotle], Athenaion PoliteiaModern bibliography mentionedCarawan, 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 guestScott 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 BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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.comAncient texts/authorsHippocratic corpusGalen of PergamonSoranus of EphesusAgrippina the Younger's lost memoirsModern scholarshipBonell 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 guestTara 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 BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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 worksBoeckh, 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 guestsEric 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 BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form

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 worksHomer's Iliad (and Odyssey)The various scholia traditions"Mythographus Homericus"Modern bibliography & referencesDickey, 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 guestBill 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 BlancoTheme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using SibeliusThis 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: @leschepodcastEmail: [email protected] a book using this form