The Endless Knot

We’re jumping into the Odyssey movie discourse, finally! We discuss our reactions to the Nolan movie and what we found interesting about it, and then chat with some podcasters who’ve just released relevant books! Oh, and Marcie has a song about Odysseus.

Doug Metzger’s podcast

The Odyssey: An Illustrated Guide

Jeff Wright’s website

Mythtake podcast

Liv Albert’s website

The Odyssey: A Modern Retelling

Joel Christensen’s new book The Oxford Critical Guide to Homer’s Odyssey

Erica Stevenson’s new book The Odyssey Effect: How Homer's Epic Poem Shaped the World

The theme song from the 60’s Hercules cartoon

Marcie’s song “Can’t See No Blues”

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We talked to Kory Stamper, lexicographer and author, about the unexpectedly gripping story of the struggle to define colours and wrestle the kaleidoscope of our social, scientific, artistic, sartorial, and commercial understanding of hues into some sort of order. This is truly one of our favourite books we’ve ever read for this podcast!

Kory’s book True Color

Kory Stamper’s website

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What does your accent say about you? (And yes, you DO have an accent!) Why do accents develop, and what is the history behind the wide range of modern American accents? We talked to Valerie Fridland about all of these questions and more, covered in her delightful new book “Why We Talk Funny”.

Valerie’s book “Why We Talk Funny”

Like, Literally, Dude! and our interview with her about it

Dr. Valerie Fridland’s website

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We spoke with linguist, writer and podcaster Dr Danny Bate about his debut book, Why Q Needs U, a “linguistico-historical non-fiction book” that sets out to answer two big questions: Where did we get the letters of the alphabet from? And why does English use them so strangely? We had a delightful conversation about the book, his podcast, Indo-European, and cats!

Danny’s book “Why Q Needs U”

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An apology for absence, some personal news, and the guests coming in the next few months.

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Grace Tierney is back with another great book about the word origins, this time “Words Christmas Gave Us"! She regales us with festive stories and we talk about some of the fun traditions and treats of the winter holidays.

It’s been a long, unintended break since our last episode, but we’re happy to be back at it, in time to wish everyone very happy holidays!

Wordfoolery website

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We spoke with Dr. Anne Curzan about her new book, “Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares about Words”. We talk about language change, inner grammandos, the benefits of learning the rules of texting from one’s students, and of course, surprising connections!

Also, please check out the Defeat Depression fundraising event, and the Sudbury Walk/Run on May 25.

Anne Curzan’s website

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Buried deep under volcanic ash lie hundreds of burnt scrolls containing texts from the first century. A new project is driving the work to try to read these chunks of carbon, to uncover new works and open new doors into the past. We spoke to one of the leaders of this project, Dr. Stephen Parsons, about the Vesuvius Challenge, the technical aspects of ‘virtual unrolling’, the possibilities of new classical texts, the development of new ways of doing scholarship, and more.

Also, please check out the Defeat Depression fundraising event, and the Sudbury Walk/Run on May 25.

The Vesuvius Challenge

Kaitlyn Hill’s books

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We talked to Dr. Karen Carr about the global history of swimming — in myth, folktale, and history. Who swam, who didn’t, and how do the stories different cultures told reflect these patterns? We also talked a bit about Dr. Carr’s next book, all about silver, women, and textiles.

Dr. Carr’s academic website

Dr. Carr’s history website and blog, Quatr.us

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We discuss the language and history of the ecological sciences, all the way back to the ancient Greeks, and the development of the food chain and food web models of ecological systems. And apologies for the unscheduled hiatus!

Golden Chain Cocktail

Food Web video

Cuckold video and podcast

Frank N. Egerton. “A History of the Ecological Sciences: Early Greek Origins”, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 82.1 (2001): 93-97

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 2: Aristotle and Theophrastos”, BESA 82.2 (2001): 149-152

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 3: Hellenistic Natural History”, BESA 82.3 (2001): 201-205

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 4: Roman Natural History”, BESA 82.4 (2001): 243-246

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 5: Byzantine Natural History”, BESA 83.1 (2002): 89-94

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 6: Arabic Language Science—Origins and Zoological Writings”, BESA 83.2 (2002): 142-146

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 7: Arabic Language Science—Botany, Geography, and Decline”, BESA 83.4 (2002): 261-266

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 8: Frederick II of Hohenstaufen: Amateur Avian Ecologist and Behaviorist”, BESA 84.1 (2003): 40-44

———, “A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 9: Albertus Magnus: a Scholastic Naturalist”, BESA 84.2 (2003): 87-91

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