Appetitive: Cleopatra

While making lunch and cleaning the kitchen yesterday while Cerinthus was working, I decided to listen to some of the BBC "In Our Time" podcasts. I have really been enjoying the science ones recently (on the Nervous System and the Age of the Universe), but I wanted to listen to some historical pieces. One that caught my attention discussed the life of Cleopatra.

Obviously Cleopatra is a figure who inspires much discussion-- and ridiculous conjecture-- but I thought that the table of experts did a lovely job explaining the political situation in Egypt and Rome before she came to power and discussing the context as well as her life. Furthermore, I did not realize that so little writing about her survives from Egypt-- almost nothing. Most of the Egyptian evidence is self-depictions on coinage that she minted. Almost all of the evidence that exists comes from Rome and most of it (save a few snide remarks from Cicero in his letters) comes posthumously.

I found the piece very enjoyable. It is not particularly in-depth, but it provides a lively discussion between scholars and a nice background for the topic. Enjoy.

Reasoning: Panel on the Delphic Oracle

After listening to the BBC post on Aristotle's Poetics that I reviewed on yesterday's blogpost, I listened to a BBC piece on the Delphic Oracle. The panel was Paul Cartledge, A G Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University; Edith Hall, Professor of Classics and Drama at Royal Holloway, University of London; and Nick Lowe, Reader in Classical Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. Since the piece is from In Our Time, the host is once again Melvyn Bragg, but luckily he's a little less arrogant and annoying. Although most of the information of Delphi is pretty basic (especially for anyone who has read Herodotus' Histories), the panel is fabulous.

Appetitive/Reasoning: Discussion of the Poetics

At my Alma Mater, one of my favorite professors is teaching a class on Aristotle's Poetics (in Greek). One of the secondary sources that he assigned for the early classes was a BBC's In Our Time program on the Poetic. A friend of mine posted the piece on twitter and I decided to listen to it.

The moderators is Melvyn Bragg, a British radio host, who is quite intelligent but seems to fancy himself as an elite intellectual and does not like to be contradicted. His discussions takes place with
Angie Hobbs, an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Warwick; Nick Lowe, a Reader in Classical Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London; and Stephen Halliwell, a Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews.

I enjoyed the podcast and think anyone interested should listen to it. However, I thought that the power dynamics of the discussion almost eclipsed the academic content for being interesting. Bragg seemed to be having a relatively good time until he decided to post his first question to Halliwell. Looking for a black-and-white answer, Bragg asked about the Poetics as a response to Plato's critique of poetry in the Republic. Halliwell spoke cogently and concisely about how to interpret Plato's work in the Republic. Bragg, now annoyed by a complicated answer quickly began to lose his patience with Halliwell and he became increasinly rude and arrogant causing me to mock him in this way to a friend over skypechat (this is a parody, not what they actually say):

Halliwell: "These ideas are really intersting and there is lots of nuance that people miss!"

Bragg: "Nuance! No more nuance! I will now slam my fist of Victorian criticism and crush your nuance."

Halliwell, eventually sort of bows to Bragg's older criticism, possibly because it seems like Bragg will not let him speak again if he does not. Later on in the show, Bragg asks Halliwell about 'catharsis' and Halliwell once again responds in a proper, scholarly manner about the difficulty of interpreting 'catharsis' and how rarely it turns up in Aristotle (once in the Poetics and once in the Politics). Annoyed again, Bragg says something very similar to "aren't you a scholar? Can't you just tell us what it means?" I could not believe it, especially since Halliwell is both a distinguished scholar and was attempting, however fruitlessly, to provide a more reasonable opinion on the texts on which he primarily conducts his research.

As much as I make fun of the discussion, clearly Bragg runs a radio show that discusses complex and interesting issues, so I subscribed to the show. If your interested, the RSS feeds and subscriptions to the podcast can be found here.

Just to spite Bragg, I thought I would include Halliwell's Author Page and some of his books: