Literature and History

A podcast by Doug Metzger

Categories:

Arts History

106 Episodes

  1. Episode 46: The Republic at Twilight (Cicero's Early Life)

    Published: 9/12/2017

  2. Episode 45: The Uncuttables (Lucretius' On the Nature of Things and Epicureanism)

    Published: 16/11/2017

  3. Episode 44: Homo Sum (Terence's The Brothers)

    Published: 20/10/2017

  4. Episode 43: On the Move (Plautus' The Rope)

    Published: 29/09/2017

  5. Episode 42: The Beginnings of Roman Literature

    Published: 17/09/2017

  6. Episode 41: Everything So Far

    Published: 3/05/2017

  7. Episode 40: Hellenism and the Birth of the Self

    Published: 24/04/2017

  8. Episode 39: Medea and the Argonauts (Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts)

    Published: 4/04/2017

  9. Episode 38: The Epic Anti-Hero (Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts)

    Published: 22/03/2017

  10. Episode 37: The New Comedy (Menander's Old Cantankerous)

    Published: 3/03/2017

  11. Episode 36: War and Peace and Sex (Aristophanes' Lysistrata)

    Published: 22/02/2017

  12. Episode 35: The Great Thundercrap (Aristophanes' The Clouds)

    Published: 7/02/2017

  13. Episode 34: The Traditions of Our Forefathers (Euripides' The Bacchae)

    Published: 24/01/2017

  14. Episode 33: Woman the Barbarian (Euripides' Medea)

    Published: 5/01/2017

  15. Episode 32: Trees Bending to the Torrent (Sophocles' Antigone)

    Published: 21/12/2016

  16. Episode 31: The Requiem at Athens (Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus)

    Published: 7/12/2016

  17. Episode 30: Two Legs in the Afternoon (Sophocles' Oedipus the King)

    Published: 23/11/2016

  18. Episode 29: The Mound and the Furies (Aeschylus' The Eumenides)

    Published: 11/11/2016

  19. Episode 28: A Mother's Curse (Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers)

    Published: 27/10/2016

  20. Episode 27: The Bloody King (Aeschylus' Agamemnon)

    Published: 14/10/2016

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With millions of downloads, hundreds of hours of soundtracked content, and an overall emphasis on the cultural history behind famous works of literature, Literature and History is one of the most popular independent podcasts on its subject. Starting with Sumerian cuneiform in 3,100 BCE, Literature and History moves forward in chronological order through Assyriology, Egyptology, the Old Testament, Ancient Greece and Rome, and the birth of Christianity. The show's current season is on Late Antiquity (or 200-700 CE) and the dawn of the Middle Ages. A typical episode (they average about two hours) features a general introduction to a work of literature, then a full summary of that work that expects no prior knowledge, and finally, an analysis of the cultural, biographical, and historical forces that gave rise to the work in question. Original symphonic and ambient background music is woven throughout each show, and all episodes offer free full, illustrated, footnoted transcriptions as well as quizzes for purposes of review. The show has no advertisements, and its host takes pride in a professional approach that avoids chitchat and ephemera and gets straight to the educational content. You can listen to the episodes in any order, although most listeners begin at the beginning and proceed from there, as the podcast itself is chronologically organized. Doug Metzger finished his Ph.D. in literature in 2011. His chief scholarly interest, following his dissertation work, continues to be 19th-century realism and postbellum American philosophy.
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