Guest:

Lori Ginzberg is Professor of History and Women, Gender and Sexual Studies at Penn State University. Professor Ginzberg is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of the Suffrage movement, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life.

Show Notes:

Below are the topics covered in this conversation (with time stamps). 

National Parks Service Suffrage Centennial WEBSITE [2:50]

Context from which demand for women’s rights emerged [5:15]

Founding myths of the Suffrage Movement [8:00]

Confronting brutal facts of commemoration as a feminist killjoy [10:30]

Caty Stanton’s disastrous, degrading racism [16:00]

Stanton’s hostility to the clergy manifest in the Women’s Bible [22:15]

The real question: what is the commemoration, really? [28:10]

What would Caty Stanton think of Universal Health Care? [29:24]

Suffrage today: contemporary efforts to suppress the vote [34:47]

First steps down the path of advocating women’s rights? [40:40]

Further Reading:

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha Jones

Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement by Cathleen D. Cahill

Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell by Alison Parker

It’s All About Love by Bell Hooks

The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault

Guest:

Emily Austin is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, and author of Grief and the Hero: the Futility of Longing in the Iliad. Her area of expertise is emotion in the ancient world.

Show Notes:

Greek concepts of Hell [3:45]

Repeating patterns of grief giving rise to anger [5:30]

Digging into the character of Odysseus [14:20]

Alice Oswald’s Memorial as powerful excavation of Homer [16:450

Contemporary echoes of Electra [18:00]

Jonathan Shay on Homer, PTSD, and Vietnam [20:00]

Notes on the Aeneid and it’s connection to Homer [23:00]

Professor Austin’s Odyssey translation recommendation:

Robert Fitzgerald

Don’t Forget:

Read the Mouse Book Club Odyssey and Aeneid Blog.

Guest:

William Cook is Professor of History, SUNY Geneseo (Retired). Professor Cook earned his PhD in History from Cornell and taught Medieval History for 42 years, lecturing and writing on Dante extensively for a variety of different audiences. Bill now runs the William Cook Foundation which provides educational opportunities in low resource communities.

Show Notes:

Good translations and don’t get lost in the notes  [20:30]

Free Will understanding who you are [23:00]

The journey of conversion [26:50]

Finding your place in the Divine Comedy [33:15]

Plug for the great work of the Bill Cook Foundation [37:00]

Professor Cook’s Dante Translation Recommendations:

1. Jean and Robert Hollander. Bob Hollander is a famous Dante scholar at Princeton and his wife is a poet. Good translation, with English/Italian facing pages. It is a verse translation but does not try to imitate Dante’s rhyme scheme. There are a lot of notes, many to scholarly works of Hollander. Published in 3 volumes by Doubleday

2. Mark Musa. I taught this translation for years. Musa was an Italian professor at Indiana U. Good intros and notes that are useful but not overwhelming. It comes in 1 and 3 volume versions. No Italian. Published by Penguin (beware because there are 3 current translation of the Commedia published by Penguin, one being the Longfellow translation.

3. Robin Kirkpatrick. 3 volumes in paperback with English and Italian. Good notes and intros. I am not quite as fond of the actual translation than I am some of the others. Still, it has good notes and intros and the paperbacks are relatively inexpensive. Also done by Penguin.

4. John Ciardi. Ciardi is a poet and it shows in this translation. Adequate notes and good introductions. It comes in one and three volume editions. Published by New American Library.

5. Robert Sinclair. This is an old, standard translation in 3 volumes. At one time it was the only cheaply available version with Italian and English. Thee translation is in prose, which takes away the poetic quality but also probably leads to a more literal translation of the original. Published by Oxford UP.

6. Durling and Martines. Rather new. It is what I used in my Dante course for my last few years of teaching. Has Italian and English, good intros, good notes. In Purgatory and Paradise points forward and backwards to the other parts of the Commedia, which we call intertextuality. Big and imposing volumes but in paperback.

Guest:

Stanley Fish is the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Yeshiva University. Stanley established his reputation as a leading Miltonist with his 1967 book Surprised by Sin. Fish’s 2001 book, How Milton Works, reflects five decades’ worth of his scholarship on Milton.

Show Notes:

Below are the topics covered in this conversation (with time stamps). 

How to accidentally becoming a world-class Milton expert. [2:00]

A bracing description of how the character of Satan works. [4:30]

Reading Satan after you realize you’ve been duped. [12:30]

Milton’s techniques for describing the indescribable [16:23]

Paradise Lost and political and cultural conflicts in Milton’s day. [20:28]

Introducing George Herbert: champion of stringency of thought. [27:00]

Diversity and the challenge of cultural literacy in the 21st century. [30:50]

Seeing Milton in our society today. [37:42]

Life’s ultimate challenge: achieving the paradise within. [41:50]

Don’t Forget:

Read the Mouse Book Club Paradise Lost Blog.

Guest: 

Emily Austin is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, and author of Grief and the Hero: the Futility of Longing in the Iliad. Her area of expertise is emotion in the ancient world.

Show Notes: 

Below are the topics covered in this conversation (with time stamps). 

Supreme grief as “lost wholeness” [6:00]

Cultural concepts that are difficult to translate [8:45]

Imperishable glory, and other key themes [10:50]

The Iliad: a story that’s more real then real [16:45]

Listening to the Iliad in Greek [23:53]

GUEST:

Mark Edmundson is University Professor at the University of Virginia and Author of the forthcoming Song of Ourselves: Walt Whitman and the Fight for Democracy.

GUEST:

George Hutchinson is Professor of American Culture, Cornell University and Author of The Ecstatic Whitman: Literary Shamanism and the Crisis of the Union.

GUEST:

Ed Folsom Professor of English at the University of Iowa. Ed is also Editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, and the Co-Director of the online Walt Whitman Archive.

GUEST:

Laura Dassow Walls is the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at Notre Dame University. Laura is also the author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life.

GUESTS:

Brian Johnson is an Associate Professor at Fordham University and the author of The Role Ethics of Epictetus: Stoicism in Ordinary Life. Brian is currently working on a comprehensive retranslation of Epictetus’ works.

Massimo Pigliucci is a Professor at the City University of New York and author of How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life.