Lesche: Ancient Greece, New Ideas
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.
Episodes
45 episodes
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: Do...
(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 dedicat...
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 Imaginati...
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 Gr...
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...
Reappraising the Choruses of Greek Tragedy
Rosa Andújar joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book, Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2025).Tragedies mentionedAeschylusAgamemnon (chorus fragmentation)Seven...
The Enchanted World of Late Antiquity
Michael Satlow joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity, which will be published on February 3 by Princeton University Press. Resources
The Influence of Plato's Timaeus: Beauty & Creation
Piero Boitani joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new book Timaeus in Paradise: Metaphors and Beauty from Plato to Dante and Beyond (Princeton University Press 2025). Ancient textsHebrew Bible, Gene...
The Life (and Times) of Diogenes 'the Cynic'
Inger Kuin joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic (Basic Books 2025). Ancient sourcesAristotle, Politics 1...
Enchantment Technologies of Ancient Greek Religion
Tatiana Bur joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge University Press 2025). Ancient textsHomer, Iliad 18 (on Hephaestus ...
Book Reviewing in Classics, with Clifford Ando (BMCR) and Mary Beard (the TLS)
Mary Beard, Classics editor at the Times Literary Supplement, and Clifford Ando, senior editor of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, join me in the Lesche to discuss the state of Classics reviewing today. How do ...
The Ancient Shore
Harvard University historian Paul Kosmin joins me in the Lesche to discuss his recent book The Ancient Shore (Harvard University Press 2024), winner of the American Historical Association's 2025 Prize in History Prior to CE 1000. ...
The Life of Demosthenes
James Romm joins me in the Lesche to discuss his new biography Demosthenes: Democracy's Defender. The book is a part of Yale University Press's Ancient Lives series, of which James is also the editor.
"Bilingual" Ionic Column Capitals
Sam Holzman joins me in the Lesche to discuss "bilingual" Ionic column capitals (i.e., column capitals that combined an archaic convex style of relief carving with a more modern concave style). These are the subject of his book Retrospectiv...
Classicism and Other Phobias, with Dan-el Padilla Peralta
Dan-el Padilla Peralta joins me in the Lesche to discuss the critique of classicism that he articulates in his recent book Classicism and Other Phobias (PUP 2025).Works mentioned (select)Adeshei Carter, Jacoby...
The Art of Hellenistic Queenship
Patricia (Tricia) Kim joins me in the Lesche to discuss the art of Hellenistic queenship -- i.e., art that depicted Hellenistic queens, art patronized by Hellenistic queens, and art that spoke to the construction of queenship across the Helleni...
Why Classicists Should Care about Byzantium, with Anthony Kaldellis
Anthony Kaldellis joins me in the Lesche to discuss an in-progress edited volume about the transmission of classical texts in the East Roman Empire (aka Byzantium), and why, more generally, classicists should be better informed about the Greek ...
SPECIAL: Literary Sources for the Roman House
Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols joins me in the Lesche to discuss her new book How to Make a Home: An Ancient Guide to Style and Comfort, a curated collection of passages (by Cicero, Juvenal, Ovid, Pliny, Vitruvius, and others) that relate ...
Homer's Bronze Age Women
Emily Hauser joins me in the Lesche to discuss the lives of the real Bronze Age women remembered in Homeric epic, the subject of her new book Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out Of It (UK titl...
Symbola (Monetiform Tokens)
Clare Rowan and M.E. (Mairi) Gkikaki join me in the Lesche to discuss the use of monetiform tokens in Greek (and a bit of Roman) antiquity. Clare was the PI on the ERC-funded project "
Classical Athenian Funerary Sculpture
Seth Estrin joins me in the Lesche to discuss Classical Athenian funerary sculpture -- the largest single corpus of classical sculpture -- and his emotion-based readings of it. Seth is the author of Grief Made Marble: Funerary Sculpture in ...
Monsters in Classical Myth
Debbie Felton and Carolina López-Ruiz join me to discuss monsters -- and what they mean and represent -- in classical mythology. Debbie is the editor of the new Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth, to which Carolina contribut...
Athens, 403 BC: A Choral History
Vincent Azoulay and Paulin Ismard join me in the Lesche to discuss their study of the restoration of democracy in Athens in 403 BC, in which they examine the Athenian civil war through the prism of chorality. A translation of their 2020 book
