Episode 90: Unrolling Books and Evolving Words

Episode 90: Unrolling Books and Evolving Words
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

We talk about the history of the book, the reading habits of the ancient Romans, the pliability of sheep skins, and the mechanisms of semantic change that cause words to evolve over time. Oh, and we discuss Charles Darwin’s own language for his new theory.

The "Codex Cocktail" was created for us by Ed Bedford — recipe here

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McCutcheon, R. W. “Silent Reading in Antiquity and the Future History of the Book.” Book History, vol. 18, 2015, pp. 1–32., www.jstor.org/stable/43956366

“In Ancient Rome” by Joseph Howley, in Further Reading, edited by Matthew Rubery and Leah Price. 2020.

Erasmus Darwin video

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Episode 30: Baba Brinkman & Peer-Reviewed Rap

Episode 030: Baba Brinkman & Peer-Reviewed Rap
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

We have the immense pleasure of interviewing Baba Brinkman, a Canadian rap artist & award-winning playwright best known for his “Rap Guide” series of plays and albums, with which he has toured the world; these cover topics like evolution, religion, medicine, and most recently climate change. He’s also pioneered the genre of ‘lit-hop’ with his adaptations of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Gilgamesh, Beowulf & more. Our conversation ranges through tree-planting; the connections between Homer, Chaucer, & rap; Horace, Lucretius, & Erasmus Darwin as science communicators; the comedy of neuroscience; Trump; language & dictionaries; and more.

At the end of the interview we play a couple of tracks by Baba: his newest single "Erosion", and the first two tracks from his Rap Canterbury Tales album, "General Prologue" & "The Knight's Tale (scene 1)".

Show Notes

Baba Brinkman's website

A brief history of rhyme | Baba Brinkman | TEDxNavesink

Professor Elemental

Baba Brinkman & Professor Elemental - What's Your English?

 

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Episode 29: Evolution, with Ray Belli

Episode 029: Evolution, with Ray Belli
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

How do words change their meanings? What are the mechanisms behind semantic change? And how do technological advances -- like the development of e-books --  affect language? We discuss these topics and more with Ray Belli, host of the Words for Granted podcast.

Show Notes

Evolution video

Evolution playlist

Words for Granted Podcast

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Episode 15: Stephen Le

Episode 015: Stephen Le
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

We talk to Stephen Le about his book 100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today, and his efforts to use an understanding of evolution to help us decide what to eat. We chat about what it means to "eat what your ancestors ate", the cultural history of food, and his wide-ranging travels in search of traditional foods to try--especially insects! 

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