Episode 102: Baking Greek Bread, with Josh Nudell

Redbubble store

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Episode 77: SoundEdu19, with Scott Lepisto

Aven McMaster November 19, 2019

Crossover time! We’re joined by Scott Lepisto, of the Itinera Podcast, in a conversation at the SoundEducation podcasting conference in Boston. We talked about the conference itself, the use of podcasting in classrooms, and the importance of public-facing scholarship in Classics and Medieval Studies. And please check out Scott’s podcast, in which he interviews classicists about their work and their journey to and through the field!

Scott on Twitter

Itinera Podcast

This episode on YouTube

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Episode 72: Dispatches from VidCon 2019

Aven McMaster July 16, 2019

While at VidCon this year, we sat down and chatted with a few of our fellow educational YouTubers: The Cynical Historian, Knowing Better, 12tone, and Step Back History. This is a compilation of our discussions about their channels, their reasons for making videos, and their experience of VidCon and its educational companion event, EduCon. If you don’t already watch their videos, we strongly recommend you check them out. Thank you to them all for taking part!

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Episode 66: Writing Myth with Amalia Dillin

Aven McMaster January 18, 2019

Carosella-Daughter_of_a_Thousand_Years-21813-CV-FT-v4 (666x999).jpg

Amalia Dillin is an author of mythic fantasy and historical fiction set in the ancient and Viking worlds. Among other books, she’s written the Fate of the Gods trilogy, about Eve and Adam (and Thor and Athena and more!), and the Orc Saga, beginning with Honor among Orcs. She also writes, as Amalia Carosella, about Bronze Age Greece (Helen of Sparta & sequels, about the love between Helen & Theseus) and the Viking Age (Daughter of a Thousand Years, about Freydis, daughter of Erik the Red, and also a modern women wrestling with her newly found pagan faith).

We spoke to Amalia before the holidays about her love of mythology, the complexities of writing historical fiction, and goats!

And hey, the Kindle of Daughter of a Thousand Years is on sale for $0.99, and the paperback is also on sale!

Amalia’s website with links to her blog and all of her books.

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

The History of the English Language podcast

Episode 64: The History of the English Language with Kevin Stroud

Aven McMaster November 16, 2018

While at the Sound Education conference we had the chance to sit down with Kevin Stroud, host of the History of the English Language podcast. We talked about his passion for language, his experiences with enthusiastic but pedantic listeners, his project to gather a database of accent samples from around the world, and much more. Thank you Keven for chatting with us, it was great fun to meet you and hang out!

Sound Education

Our video “What’s the Earliest English Word?”

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Episode 56: Linguistic Discrimination, with The Vocal Fries

Mark Sundaram April 11, 2018

We have the great pleasure to be joined by Megan & Carrie from the Vocal Fries podcast to talk about linguistic discrimination: what is it, why is it bad, what is its history, and how can we combat it?

Show Notes

The Vocal Fries Podcast

Conversation Starter cocktail

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Episode 51: Race & Racism in Ancient & Medieval Studies, Part One: the Problem

Mark Sundaram January 17, 2018

The Beowulf Manuscript; Marvels of the East; Beowulf; Judith (Cotton MC Vitellius)

What are the problems surrounding race and racism in the fields of Classics and Medieval Studies today? Where did these fields come from, and how does that affect the way we think about the past, and how we construct the present? For this episode (and the next) we interviewed eight scholars and put it together into an exploration of these unfortunately timely topics. Thank you to Katherine Blouin, Damian Fleming, Usama Ali Gad, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Asa Mittman, Dimitri Nakassis, Helen Young, and Donna Zuckerberg for their generous contributions of time and thoughtful discussion of these difficult subjects. In our next episode, we will hear about possible responses to these problems -- in teaching, scholarship, and more.

Show Notes

Transcript

Episode 44: "Us" & "Them" in the Ancient & Anglo-Saxon Worlds

Part Two: Responses

Dr. Katherine Blouin
Everyday Orientalism blog
@isisnaucratis

Dr. Damian Fleming
@FW_Medieval

Dr. Usama Ali Gad
Classics in Arabic blog
@Usamaligad78

Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Classics at the Intersections blog
Sourcebook on Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World
@kataplexis

Dr. Asa Mittman
Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript

Dr. Dimitri Nakassis
Aegean Prehistory blog
@DimitriNakassis

Dr. Helen Young
Race & Popular Fantasy: Habits of Whiteness
@heyouonline

Dr. Donna Zuckerberg
Eidolon
@donnazuck

The Public Medievalist's series on Race, Racism, & the Middle Ages

In the Middle blog (frequently has useful posts on these subjects)

Hold My Mead: A Bibliography For Historians Hitting Back At White Supremacy by Sarah Bond

Medieval People of Color Tumblr

A brief history of rhyme | Baba Brinkman | TEDxNavesink

This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Episode 30: Baba Brinkman & Peer-Reviewed Rap

Aven McMaster March 10, 2017

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

Professor Elemental

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

Words for Granted Podcast

Episode 29: Evolution, with Ray Belli

Aven McMaster February 27, 2017

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

Episode 15: Stephen Le

Aven McMaster April 25, 2016

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!

Show Notes

Stephen's Website

And thank you to our Patreon supporters:

Carlos Solis
Valerie Polichar
Lukas Hägele
Evermore Anon
Ian & Susan McMaster
Chantal Sundaram
Sean Soderman

Episode 12: David Hein & Irene Sankoff

Aven McMaster February 17, 2016

We talk to David and Irene about their most recent project, "Come From Away", a musical about the town of Gander, Nfld. on 9/11, and discuss the ways the story, the musical, and their work all demonstrate the importance of connections.

The official "Come from Away" site

Show Notes

UPDATE: The show will be at the Royal Alexandra Theatre Nov. 15, 2016 - Jan. 8, 2017, and then previews on Broadway begin Feb. 18, 2017 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. There will also be two benefit concerts in Newfoundland & Labrador on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016.

More information about "Come From Away"

And thank you to our Patreon supporters: Valerie Polichar, Lukas Hägele, Evermore Anon, Ian & Susan McMaster, Carlos Solis, and Chantal Sundaram.

Episode 10: James Andean

Aven McMaster January 25, 2016

We chat to musician and sound artist James Andean about acousmatic music, interdisciplinary improvisation, the role of narrative in music, and, inevitably, Star Wars. And make sure you listen to the piece by James that he graciously allowed us to include at the end!

We found this conversation fascinating, as it explores areas of music we didn't know much about, but also showed us some unforeseen overlaps between our own interests and the seemingly very different areas that James works in. A great example of unexpected connections around us!

Also, although we don't mention it on the podcast, we've just launched a Patreon campaign, to help us support our podcasting and the videos we make, so please take a moment to check that out. Thanks.

Show Notes

James Andean's website

James on Twitter

James on Facebook

The picture of Mars in various seasons drawn by our 5-year-old while listening to "Maledetta"

Episode 5: Janice Liedl

Aven McMaster September 14, 2015

A conversation with Dr. Janice Liedl, history prof at Laurentian University, about fandoms, science fiction, Star Wars and Star Trek, a treason trial in the time of Henry VIII, and how history and the study of history connect to all of it.