Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

Mar 04 2025 16 ep. 52 mins 11

Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas Podcast artwork

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

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Myths of Kingship in Greece and the Near East

Mar 04 2025 51 mins

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 GilgameshThe Hebrew BibleVarious Sumerian and Akkadian texts about Sargon, Dumuzi/Tammuz, and Ina

Plato and Athens

Feb 18 2025 57 mins

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 lotsXeno

The Sophists

Feb 04 2025 55 mins

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: Harvard

Wedding Poetics in Early Greek Literature

Jan 21 2025 56 mins

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 6H

The Cambridge Greek Lexicon

Jan 07 2025 53 mins

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 (

The Longue Durée of the Greek Polis

Dec 24 2024 59 mins

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 stud

SPECIAL: Pasolini's THE RETURN, with Homerist Barbara Graziosi

Dec 12 2024 46 mins

(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 Studie

(Imperial) Greek Epic

Dec 10 2024 55 mins

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 Assoc

Translating the Iliad, with Emily Wilson

Nov 26 2024 58 mins

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). About our guest Emily Wilson is Department Chair and Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, holding the College fo

The Athenian Funeral Oration

Nov 12 2024 61 mins

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 Athenian Fun