King Lear in podcast

When In Our Time issued a program about King Lear, I figured in advance, I could listen to it in conjunction with Berkeley's English 117S. The latter podcast is a lecture series about Shakespeare, taking on the more important plays one by one, dissecting them in three episodes which each take around 60 minutes.

The problems with English 117s that make it pretty inaccessible as a podcast are many and varied, but there are two that are in my eyes too big and too central and each ruin this series for the general public. One is that you have to have read each play that is being discussed pretty meticulously and would better have it at hand while listening, which is something I won't expect even the best listener can manage. The second problem is that the lecture is interactive, the professor (Charles Altieri) engages in dialog with the students, but on the podcast you cannot hear the students and Altieri doesn't repeat what they are saying. As a consequence, you are double shut out from the experience and only if you are totally dedicated to getting what can be had from the series and can put up with the way it is fragmented for you, there may be some point in listening.

The high level of the content is indisputable though and I was hoping In Our Time would prepare me sufficiently for listening. However, In Our Time hardly engaged in the content of the play (and assumed it known as well), but rather evolved around the reception and development. Still a very interesting podcast and still a very challenging listen. So how to take these two and listen to them with the greatest satisfaction, without spending hours of preparation?

I suggest one starts with Wikipedia and reads first the short entry about the historic King Lear (Leir), then the entry about the reception and development (The History of King Lear). This will kick you off wonderfully for In Our Time (King Lear). Once you have enjoyed that, you have a great introduction in the history, importance and genius of the play and that is where you can enter it. Wikipedia's entry on the play (King Lear) contains a list of characters and a synopsis and after having read this, you can begin to follow English 117S (stream for the first hour, the second hour, the third and final).

This remains a rugged ride, but one of 4 hours of podcast with maybe 30 minutes of preparation and an outcome that gives deep insight in the play and a full enrichment that a great work of culture can deliver: a historical, aesthetic, philosophical, psychological and spiritual experience.

More In Our Time:
Ada Lovelace,
The Social Contract,
Plate Tectonics,
The Fisher King,
The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Previously on English 117S:
Berkeley Spring 2008 has kicked off.

Rijk de Gooijer - Marathoninterview

De VPRO heeft weer een reeks marathoninterviews in feed gestopt. Het gaat om de meest recente en de reeks uit 1990. De eerste die ik uit de nieuwe lading gepikt heb is een gesprek met Rijk de Gooijer. Niet met een speciale reden - het was gewoon de eerste in de rij.

Maar voor ik ging luisteren moest ik wel denken aan een verhaal dat ik in de jaren negentig in de krant had gelezen. Rijk was van het dak gevallen van zijn huis in het centrum van Amsterdam. Hij wilde de poes van het balkon pakken en kukelde van zes hoog naar beneden. Had alles gebroken, maar niets essentieels en kon het gezond en wel navertellen. Dat heeft indruk op me gemaakt. Ik denk niet dat het aan de orde kan komen in het interview uit 1990, want het is naar alle waarschijnlijkheid later gebeurd.

Toch bracht het interview wel wat licht in deze miraculeuze kwestie. Rijk vertelt namelijk dat hij parachutespringer is geweest. Tijdens de oorlog in het leger van de geallieerden en nadien nog als recreatieve springer. Kortom, hij heeft wel leren vallen en dat geeft je het idee dat hij bij zijn noodlottige ongeluk zichzelf, bewust of onbewust heeft kunnen behoeden voor meer schade dan nodig.

Meer marathoninterviews:
Hans Galjaard,
Bert ter Schegget,
De Gaay Fortman,
Ina Muller-Van Ast,
Albert Helman,
Lea Dasberg,
Rudi Kross,
Jan Wolkers (warm aanbevolen).

Glad and gay - Legal history podcast

GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) is a legal rights organization in New England, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. On this occasion, they have started a monthly podcast which digs up the case history of GLAD, and made it into a monthly podcast. The plaintiffs and the lawyers are interviewed and the case is recounted from beginning to end. As much as one could call this a history podcast, in my humble opinion it is more of a Law podcast. Well, from the perspective of a former specialist in constitutional law it is.

By now, three episodes have been published. They are done very professionally and remind me of true radio programs. The history is of course very recent and the subject is less the development in society and much, much more in law and precedent. Many of the angles of the cases are quite elementary and needless to say, even though a tough fight is put up, the principles against discrimination in the end prevail.

I was alerted to this podcast by a comment left on this blog by Carisa Cunningham. I want to say thank you again to Carisa, for the reaction and request. I hope more people will turn to me and push the podcasts they like to see reviewed.

This weekend on Anne is a Man!

Friday:
- Glad and gay: on a legal history podcast

After Friday:
- Rijk: VPRO Marathoninterview
- King Lear: a guide to In Our Time and Berkeley's English 117S on this great play



In the coming week
- Shrink Rap Radio (Mindmentor and others)
- UChannel Podcast
- Getting Published with the Writing Show
- More than 100 podcasts reviewed

In New podcasts on trial:
Are we Alone?
Redborne History Podcast
Teaching American History Podcast
History 2311 Western Civilization until 1600
History 2312 Western Civilization from 1600
We the people stories

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History of the International System

Stanford on iTunes U has immensely interesting content, which is not always syndicated. I guess the university wants to wait and see if a course gets a certain amount of attention, before it opens a feed. The History of the International System is a lecture series that was conducted by professor James Sheehan earlier this year, but only put on-line after the course nearly finished. And then it took yet another couple of days, and some publications on the web (such as on Open Culture) to let the world know, before the input got into a feed. By now 9 out of the 29 lectures have become available. The rest, apparently is still in post-production. (feed)

This is a course, not just in history, but in a sense also in geopolitics and political science. Sheehan defines 'the international system' as the society of states. States need each other, however there is confrontation for each state to get its own way to find other states in its way. There are rules in order to make common life possible. Conventions, customs, laws etc. In the system of states there is no ultimate sovereign - no enforcement of the rules. There is however some kind of cohesion and dynamic, hence a system.

He starts off in the late nineteenth century. With the help of Verne's story In 80 days around the world, he attempts to convince his audience that the world has become a global unity. While he may need to continue his narration until the dynamics of the aftermath of the First World War, think of the League of Nations that emerges, in order to convince some people that indeed there is some international system, some order in the jungle of nations, for me his case was made. Stronger so, it seems to me, once one observes how the polities are intertwined and have a dynamic without a supreme power, one can even argue there has been an international system ever since the polities came in contact with each other. And if you consider that, although through intermediaries, the Romans traded with the Chinese, this system has always been nearly global. Globalization is certainly complete by the age of exploration.

Maybe the system is not purely international, since not all players are nation-states, but even in 1919, this is still not entirely the case. Those thoughts aside, we get in this course insight in the geopolitics of the last 150 years and how it alternately succeeded and failed to maintain a level of peace world wide. Recent history from a very exciting perspective. A podcast that will grant the listener insight in the quagmires of the Middle-East and other such persistently eluding issues.

Spring Heeled Jack - Your History Podcast

Your History Podcast is a new podcast to arrive at the history scene. The host, Dan Brown (a name to be blessed with), announces the aim with the podcast: to reveal those stories that so easily go lost.

The first episode, A Victorian Character, does exactly that: it tells a story (transcript). The story is of Spring Heeled Jack, a mysterious figure that roamed London in the nineteenth century. In confusing accounts Jack's victims describe how they are attacked by somebody more resembling a monster rather than a ring of the mill criminal. They were also not robbed, they were just scared out of their wits, sometimes groped, but nothing more.

The true identity of Jack, it was presumed, would be an upper class prankster, but he was never caught and he continued to roam even when some of the suspects had died. Jack has been reported well into the twentieth century and Dan concludes he might be roaming still, hence sticking to the story-telling quality of the podcast. This is entertainment mixed in with history and it is pulled off rather well. We will keep an eye on Dan Brown's progress.