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 title: Mythica). We also discuss the popularity of feminist retellings of Greek myth, and why (it's good) they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

This is the last regular episode of Lesche's first season. We'll be back with a second season on September 10. 

Ancient texts

• Homer, Iliad and Odyssey

Also mentioned

• Beard, Mary, Women & Power: A Manifesto (Norton/Liveright 2017).
• Cline, Eric, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton 2014/revised edn. 2021) and After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations (Princeton 2024).
• Emily Hauser's own Golden Apple Trilogy (Penguin Random House): For the Most Beautiful (2016); For the Winner (2017); For The Immortal (2018).
• Haynes, Natalie, No Friend to This House (Pan Macmillan forthcoming 2025).
• Hewlett, Rosie, Medea (Random House 2024).

About our guest

Dr Emily Hauser is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter and the Times bestselling author of Mythica: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out Of It (Penelope's Bones in the US). She also wrote a trilogy of novels reworking the women of Greek myth, including For the Most Beautiful (published in 2016). She has a PhD in Classics from Yale and was Junior Fellow at Harvard before returning to the UK.

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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: [email protected]
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