Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

Johanna Hanink
  • 4.7 (27)
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  • Updated Biweekly

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

  1. 2d ago

    Luck (and Lucklessness) in Ancient Greek Thought

    Daniel Schillinger joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Luckless: The Idea of Luck in Ancient Greek Thought, which recently appeared with Oxford University Press. Find out more about Daniel's work here: https://www.danielschillinger.com/ Ancient authors and texts Sophocles, Oedipus RexEuripides, Trojan Women (and Hippolytus)ThucydidesAristotle, Physics, Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics (Daniel's book also contains a chapter on the Eudemian Ethics)Other works/authors Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy; The PrinceMartha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and PhilosophyArlene Saxenhouse, work on tragedy (see esp. her 1988 "The tyranny of reason in the world of the polis, in The American Political Science Review 82: 1261-1275)H.P. Stahl, Thucydides: Man's Place in HistoryLeo Strauss, On Thucydides' War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians," chapter in The City and ManBernard Williams, Moral LuckAdam Parry's scholarship on ThucydidesAnd others: Arendt, Freud, Kant, Nietzsche, Rawls...About our Guest Daniel Schillinger is a Lecturer in Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches in the Directed Studies Program and offers seminars on Greek political thought. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Yale Center for Civic Thought and a recipient of the Lux et Veritas teaching prize. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    47 min

  2. May 20

    Stasis: Political Violence in Classical Greece

    Scott Lawin Arcenas joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book, Political Violence in Ancient Greece: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Stasis, 500-301 BCE (Cambridge University Press 2026). Ancient texts (select) Homer, Odyssey and IliadAlcaeusSolonHerodotus, esp. the account of the stasis in ChiosThucydides, esp. the account of the stasis at Corcyra (Book 3)   Xenophon, Hellenika, esp. the account of stasis in ElisAeneas Tacticus, Stratagems[Aristotle], Athenaion PoliteiaModern bibliography mentioned Carawan, Edwin. 2013. The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Driscoll, Eric. 2016. “Stasis and Reconciliation: Politics and Law in Fourth-Century Greece.” Chiron 46: 119–155.Gehrke, Hans-Joachim. 1985. Stasis: Untersuchungen zu den inneren Kriegen in den griechischen Staaten des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. München: C. H. Beck.Gray, Benjamin. 2013. “Justice or Harmony? Reconciliation after Stasis at Dikaia and the Fourth-Century BC Polis.” Revue des Études Anciennes 115 (2): 369–401.Hansen, Mogens H., and Thomas H. Nielsen, eds. 2004. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Loraux, Nicole. 2002. The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens. New York: Zone Books. (Originally published 1997 as La cité divisée: L’oubli dans la mémoire d’Athènes. Paris: Payot & Rivages).Ma, John. 2024. Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Simonton, Matt. 2026. Ancient Greek Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Wees, Hans van. 2008. “‘Stasis, Destroyer of Men’: Mass, Elite, Political Violence and Security in Archaic Greece.” In Sécurité Collective et Ordre Public Dans Les Sociétés Anciennes, edited by Hans van Wees, Cédric Brélaz, and Pierre Ducrey, 1–39. Genève: Fondation Hardt.About our guest Scott Lawin Arcenas is a historian and classicist who specializes in the history of democracy and political violence. His first book, Political Violence in Ancient Greece: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Stasis, 500-301 BCE (Cambridge University Press) reveals the nature, frequency, and intensity of political violence in fifth- and fourth-century Greek city-states. He holds degrees from Princeton, Cambridge, and Stanford and is currently an associate professor of history and classics at the University of Montana. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    55 min

  3. May 6

    Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome

    Content warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of childbirth complications -- including maternal and infant mortality -- and of how such complications were handled by ancient midwives and physicians. There are graphic references to surgical procedures. Tara Mulder joins me in the Lesche to discuss her brand new book, A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome (University of California Press 2026).  You can read a Q&A with Tara on the UC Press blog here.  Tara's personal website: taramulder.com Ancient texts/authors Hippocratic corpusGalen of PergamonSoranus of EphesusAgrippina the Younger's lost memoirsModern scholarship Bonell Freidin, Anna. 2024. Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Ancient Rome. University of Michigan Press. Hug, Angela. 2023. Fertility Ideology and the Cultural Politics of Reproduction at Rome. Brill. About our guest Tara Mulder is assistant professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an affiliation in Gender and Women's Studies. She is the editor of the forthcoming volume, A Cultural History of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Antiquity. As the daughter of a home birth midwife, she has assisted in over two dozen births. More of her writing on pregnancy, childbirth, abortion, medicine, gender, and sexuality in antiquity can be found at taramulder.com.  ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    56 min

  4. Apr 22

    A Social and Economic History of the Theater to 300 BC

    Eric Csapo and Peter Wilson join me in the Lesche to discuss their three-volume A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC (Cambridge University Press).  Volume 1, The Theatre Festivals of Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary, appeared earlier this year. Volume 2, Theatre Beyond Athens: Documents with Translation and Commentary, came out in 2020. Volume 3, on theater personnel and individuals associated with the theater, is in the works. Ancient texts (many are mentioned) Aristophanes, Acharnians (Dicaeopolis' celebration of a private "rural" Dionysia) Several ancient plays! Plato, Ion and Laws  Inscriptional records for dramatic festivals (IG II2 2318-2325; see Millis and Olson's 2012 edition). These include the "Fasti" (IG II2 2318). Modern works Boeckh, A. 1817 Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener (The Public Economy of Athens). Berlin. Csapo, E. and N. Wilson. 1995. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. First published 1953; 2nd edn. 1968; revised edn. by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis (1988). About our guests Eric Csapo is Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. He is co-author of The Context of Ancient Drama (1995), Theories of Mythology (2005), and Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theatre (2010), as well as co-editor of various volumes on ancient theatre history. Peter Wilson is William Ritchie Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is the author of The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: the Chorus, the City and the Stage (2000) and the editor or co-editor of The Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century (2014), Dithyramb in Context (2013), Music and the Muses: the Culture of ‘Mousike’ in the Classical Athenian City (2004) and Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies (2007). ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    1 hr

  5. Apr 8

    (Translating) the Scholia to the Iliad

    Bill Beck joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new translation of the vetera scholia to Iliad Book 1-2: The Ancient Scholia to Homer's Iliad: A Translation, Volume 1 (Cambridge 2025). The book is the first in a series dedicated to translation of the Iliadic scholia. For an episode on the Iliad itself, and its translation, see Lesche episode 1.6, "Translating the Iliad, with Emily Wilson" (by far the most popular Lesche episode ever!). Ancient works Homer's Iliad (and Odyssey)The various scholia traditions"Mythographus Homericus"Modern bibliography & references Dickey, E. 2007. Ancient Greek scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Erbse, H. 1969-1988. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia vetera). Berlin: de Gruyter.Nünlist, R. 2011. The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.van Thiel, H. 2014. Scholia D in Iliadem. Cologne: Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek.Wolf, F. A. 1795. Prolegomena to Study of Homer. See Anthony Grafton's 2016 translation (the original is in Latin), published by Princeton University Press.About our guest Bill Beck is an Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Indiana University. His research focuses on Archaic Greek epic and ancient Homeric scholarship. He is the co-editor of The Ancient Scholia to Homer’s Iliad: Exegesis and Interpretation (Oxford, 2021) and the author of The Ancient Scholia to Homer’s Iliad: A Translation, Volume 1 (Cambridge, 2025). He is currently completing a monograph on the Iliad’s representation of the first nine years of the Trojan War, provisionally entitled Ten Years in Troy, Fifty-One Days at Ilios: The Iliad and the Trojan War. N.B. The podcast Bill recommends at the end of the episode is called Totalus Rankium. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    48 min

  6. Mar 25

    Seal-Impressions (typoi) and Ancient Image Making

    Art historian Verity Platt joins me in the Lesche to discuss her much-anticipated new book Epistemic Impressions: Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text (Oxford 2026). On May 11, the Queen Mary University of London Imagination Research Network will be hosting a "launch symposium" to celebrate the book's publication. Information and tickets are available here. The novel that Verity recommends at the end of the podcast is When the Museum is Closed, by Emi Yagi. Read an excerpt here, in Yuki Tejima's translation. Ancient sources Dionysius of Halicarnassus, various treatises (see Verity's Ch. 5) for the term archetypon (and 'style' as charaktēr)Herodotus 3.40-43, on the "seal" of PolycratesMesomedes 9, "Ekphrasis of a sponge" (see here on Mesomedes, a Hadrianic-era poet)Philostratus, for using languge relating to "impressions" and typoiPlato's, esp. Republic, Phaedrus, Timaeus and on mimesisPliny the Elder, Natural History book 35 (103 on the story of Protogenes and the sponge)Posidippus, various epigrams, esp. AB 13-15 (Verity reads AB 14)Theophrastus, On StonesModern bibliography/references The work of Charles Sanders Peirce (American scientist, mathematician and semiotician) on the "index" and "indexical reference"Platt, V. J.  2016. ‘The Artist as Anecdote: Creating Creators in Ancient Texts and Modern Art History’. In J. Hanink and R. Fletcher, (eds). 2016. Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, Artists, and Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 274–304.Pollitt, J. J.  1974. The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology. New Haven: Yale University Press.Stoichita, V. I. 1997. A Short History of the Shadow. London: Reaktion Books.Image: Joseph Wright's "The Corinthian Maid" (oil on canvas, 1782-84), in the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.).About our guest Verity Platt is a professor of Classics and History of Art at Cornell University, where she is also co-curator of the plaster cast collection and directs the Humanities Scholar Program for undergraduates. She is the author of Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature, and Religion (Oxford 2011), and the newly published Epistemic Impressions: Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text (Oxford 2026). She is also an editor of the Classical Receptions Journal. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    51 min

  7. Mar 11

    Time and Ancient Textiles

    Marie-Louise Nosch, former director of the Centre for Textile Research at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen, joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Time of Textiles in Ancient Greece (DeGruyter 2025). If you like this episode, you might also enjoy Lesche episode 1.10, "Wedding Poetics in Ancient Greek Literature," with Andromache Karanika. Ancient texts Homer, Iliad and Odyssey (lots of weaving scenes)Hesiod, on the creation of Pandora (Theogony and Works and Days)Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (the "recognition scene" also parodied in Euripides' Electra)Euripides, Ion (on Creusa's "sampler" as recognition token)Thucydides 1.6 (on ancient Ionian dress)The "Old Oligarch"/[Xenophon] Constitution of the Athenians 1.10 (on the indistinguishability of free and enslaved persons on the basis of dress in Athens)Modern bibliography Andersson Strand, Eva and Mannering, Ulla. 2021. “Sailmaking. A Gigantic Collective Undertaking”, in Jeanette Varberg and Peter Pentz (eds.), The Raid. Join the Vikings, 29 – 44. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark.Brøns, Cecilie. 2016. Gods and Garments: Textiles in Greek Sanctuaries in the 7th to the 1st Centuries BC. Oxbow.Bücher, Karl. 1896. Arbeit und Rhythmus. Leipzig: Teubner.Karanika, Andromache. 2014. Voices at Work: Women, Performance, and Labor in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Pantelia, Maria C. 1993. “Spinning and Weaving. Ideas of Domestic Order in Homer”, The American Journal of Philology 114 no. 4, 493 – 501.About our guest Marie Louise Nosch studied Ancient Greek History in Nancy and Naples and completed her doctoral thesis at the University of Salzburg. Her special field of research is Aegean epigraphy and Mycenaean Linear B inscriptions, as well as ancient textile production. She was the Director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research (2005-2016) at the University of Copenhagen and has been Professor of Ancient Greek History at the University of Copenhagen since 2011. She was elected to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2017 and served as President from 2020-2024. ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    52 min

  8. Feb 25

    The Doloneia (Iliad Book 10)

    Christos C. Tsagalis joins me in the Lesche to discuss the Doloneia, i.e., Iliad 10, which is the topic of both Christos' monograph The Homeric Doloneia: Evolution and Shaping of Iliad 10 (Oxford 2024) and his chapter in Jonathan Ready's recent edited volume, the Oxford Critical Guide to Homer's Iliad (Oxford 2024). The Doloneia/Iliad 10 is traditionally divided into two sections: the Nyktegersia (the 'night watch' or nocturnal council scene, lines 1-179) and the spy-mission itself.  Bibliography Danek, Georg. (1988) Studien zur Dolonie. Vienna. Dué, Casey and Mary Ebbott (2010. Iliad 10 and the Poetics of Ambush: a Multitext Edition with Essays and Commentary. Hellenic Studies 39. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University Press. Also mentioned Homeric scholarship by Gregory Nagy and his pupils The Parry-Lord Hypothesis (of oral composition) About our guest Christos C. Tsagalis is Professor of Ancient Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Ordinal Member of the Academia Europaea, Corresponding Member of the Cypriot Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts, Member of the Governing Board of the Center for the Greek Language in Thessaloniki. He is the Co-Editor of the Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic (Brill), the series of monographs Key Perspectives on Classical Research (Walter de Gruyter), Assistant Editor of the series Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes (Walter de Gruyter), and Member of the scientific board of the series of classical commentaries Aris and Philips. Ηe specializes in Early Greek Epic Poetry.  ________________________________ Thanks for joining us in the Lesche! Podcast art: Daniel Blanco Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study. Instagram: @leschepodcast Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com Suggest a book using this form

    48 min
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About

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

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  • Creator
    Johanna Hanink
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    48
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas
  • Show Website
    Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas

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