The Endless Knot Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster

This episode is all about Alexander the Great, and especially about his reception by later Greeks & Romans, the middle ages, and modern popular culture. We had the pleasure of interviewing Meg Finlayson who studies Alexander and his reception and shared her knowledge, enthusiasm, and dreams of a new Alexander movie with Colin Farrell playing Philip!

Happy holidays! In this seasonal episode we discuss the origins of the modern Western calendar, the names of the months and days of the week, and the sources we have for Roman calendars and Germanic gods. Happy new year, and may it be better than the last!
Our poster store
Crosscut Distillery
Sabbath
Millennial
Ovid's Fasti
Herbert-Brown, Geraldine. “Fasti: the Poet, the Prince, and the Plebs” in A Companion to Ovid, ed. Peter E. Knox, Wiley-Blackwell. 2013.
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS

It’s election night 2020 in the US, and our video from 4 years ago about the language of politics is relevant once again. We discuss the changing vocabulary of democracy and what it can tell us about shifting attitudes towards popular rule and politicians. It may not be a complete break from political coverage, but at least it’s mostly about the distant past, not the uncertain future!
Ballot Box Cocktail
Mashed Radish blog post on Candidate
Mashed Radish blog post on Poll
Anatoly Liberman on Booth
“Sublime” video
“Sublime” podcast
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS

n this episode we go from the origin of the world to the many uses of olive oil, with discussions of Roman mosaics, and trademark law along the way. This is the third of our episodes on Intellectual Property, following Episode 42: Bugging Out! on patents and Episode 57: Freebooting, Piracy, & Copyright on copyright. Also, it’s the start of Season 6, and we want to thank everyone who’s joined us over the last 5 years. It’s been a blast, and here’s to another half decade!
“The asàrotos òikos mosaic as an elite status symbol” by Ehud Fathy
Ancient History Encyclopedia — the olive
Oxford Dictionaries blog post on “gasoline”
Hesiod, Theogony
First oil derrick — picture
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS

Back in June we had the pleasure of being part of the Intelligent Speech Conference 2020 — this year, held entirely online. It was a day filled with amazing podcasters and great conversations, and in this short episode we’re sharing the talk that we gave at the event. It’s about the word Recipe and early cookbooks, medicine, and women’s magazines. If you’d like to see the images that accompanied the presentation, you can watch the talk on YouTube, where the questions and post-talk discussion are also included.
Transcript of this episode
Intelligent Speech Conference
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS

It’s time for us to talk about plagues — ancient, medieval, literary, etymological, and psychological! We’re joined by Moxie from Your Brain on Facts for a very fun — if slightly disturbing — discussion of many aspects of historical plagues.
Transcript of this episode
Your Brain on Facts
Gardner, H.H. Pestilence and the Body Politic in Latin Literature. 2019.
Episode 44: "Us" & "Them" in the Ancient & Anglo-Saxon Worlds
Episode 51: Race & Racism in Ancient & Medieval Studies, Part One: The Problem
Episode 52: Race & Racism in Ancient & Medieval Studies, Part Two: Responses
Thorneloe Race forum episode
Statue/Systemic
Crisis/Discrimination
Thug/Protect
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS
rbgtk5r4