Lend Me Your Ears is a six-part podcast miniseries exploring how Shakespeare’s works have shaped our modern views on politics. Each month, host Isaac Butler will dig into a different Shakespeare play to explore how Shakespeare was responding to his current events, and how they map onto our own.

In this first episode, Lend Me Your Ears is looking at one of Shakespeare’s most accessible works: Julius Caesar. Why was the Bard so fascinated with the fall of the Roman Republic? Why do we tend to turn to this play when we worry about society’s future? How have contemporary theater makers reinvented Shakespeare’s version of the story for their audiences, especially in troubled political times?

Learn more about Lend Me Your Ears at slate.com/shakespeare

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Yes! John McWhorter on our compact, workaday affirmative.

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John McWhorter on why the 16th letter of our alphabet is a fancy little thing.

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John McWhorter on why English spelling is so frustratingly idiosyncratic.

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John McWhorter on what Washington, Franklin and Hamilton may have sounded like.

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John McWhorter on the rise of an exclamatory syllable in English.

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John McWhorter on the rich complexities of a humble preposition.

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John McWhorter on the origin of woman, girl and other lady terms.

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John McWhorter on the etymology and pronunciation of English numbers.

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Like gangster and gangsta, nigger and nigga have become two distinct words.

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