Faculty Insight: Honor and Fair Play in Homer’s Iliad
In this fifth installment of Faculty Insight, produced in partnership with Harvard University Extension School, ThoughtCast speaks with the esteemed Harvard classicist Gregory Nagy about one of the earliest and greatest legends of all time: Homer’s epic story of the siege of Troy, called The Iliad. It’s a story of god-like heroes and blood-soaked battles; honor, pride, shame and defeat. And Nagy is the perfect guide to this classic tale. He’s the director of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, as well as the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard. We spoke in his office at Widener Library.
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WitnessThe Srebrenica massacre
In July 1995 thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica.
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New Books in Food
Silvia Lehrer, “Savoring the Hamptons: Discovering the Food and Wine of Long Island’s East End”
It’s not that Silvia Lehrer dislikes the rich people who flock to the Hamptons every July and August. It’s just that she prefers to celebrate those who have more blood and history invested in the land and sea on the East End of Long Island. “The local farmers, the families, all of these people have committed to generations of working the farms.” she says in this interview with New Books in Food. I interviewed Silvia on the back patio of her house in Water Mill, New York. The conversation is like a gentle journey taken on a warm July morning, a pleasant tour through a fertile land where sea foam and tractors meet, where fishermen bring in a catch that potato farmers might eat for dinner. Her new book, Savoring the Hamptons: Discovering the Food and Wine of Long Island’s East End contains recipes Silvia developed from decades of writing about the food people of the North and South forks of Long Island, and brief profiles of many of the salty and sweet characters there.
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New Books in Language
Robert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity”
Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has been going to the dogs ever since? Such is the anguish of declinists the world over, pushing the commercial success of language-bashing stocking fillers. But what’s the real reason that we get hung up on greengrocers’ apostrophes and the superiority of certain language forms over others? Robert Lane Greene’s premise is that for those who hold up the standardised variety as the one true voice, the authority of the prestige language is not about words and rules, but about the perceived superiority of the people who use it. Hand-wringing over glottal stops and ‘ain’t’ contractions obscures attempts to define ‘us’ and distance ‘them’, and is a tool to support class, ethnic, or national prejudices.
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Fraunhofer Podcast
Licht steuert Zellen
Die Wunschliste von Ärzten und Patienten ist lang: Wirkungsvollere Medikamente gegen Krebs und andere Krankheiten, besser verträgliche Implantate – und am besten sollen sie alle ganz ohne Tierversuche entwickelt werden. Große Erwartungen sind an zellbasierte Testsysteme geknüpft.
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