The Epic of Gilgamesh
12/06/18 • 47 min
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the Ur-epic inscribed onto damp clay tablets several millennia before Odysseus or the priest of Ecclesiastes found their voices. The Sumerian versions date back almost 5000 years. Scholar Kent H. Dixon explains what’s the Epic story of Gilgamesh, and how Bildungsroman of a bad king learning to become a proper human being and therefore a wise king, and to do so, besides defeating lions and monsters and surviving great physical and emotional suffering, he must face, and answer, the first (and last) great question: mortality.
Translated into English and presented as a graphic novel, this version of THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH is a father/son project by scholar and translator Kent H. Dixon and his son, the comix artist Kevin H. Dixon, who bring a fresh take on this great work.
Guest: Kent H. Dixon is a translator, a writer, and Emeritus Professor of English, at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
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BOOK The Epic of Gilgamesh by Kent H. Dixon and Kevin H. Dixon $100
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COMBO Book + USB $280
The post The Epic of Gilgamesh appeared first on KPFA.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the Ur-epic inscribed onto damp clay tablets several millennia before Odysseus or the priest of Ecclesiastes found their voices. The Sumerian versions date back almost 5000 years. Scholar Kent H. Dixon explains what’s the Epic story of Gilgamesh, and how Bildungsroman of a bad king learning to become a proper human being and therefore a wise king, and to do so, besides defeating lions and monsters and surviving great physical and emotional suffering, he must face, and answer, the first (and last) great question: mortality.
Translated into English and presented as a graphic novel, this version of THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH is a father/son project by scholar and translator Kent H. Dixon and his son, the comix artist Kevin H. Dixon, who bring a fresh take on this great work.
Guest: Kent H. Dixon is a translator, a writer, and Emeritus Professor of English, at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
Support KPFA, Donate today!
BOOK The Epic of Gilgamesh by Kent H. Dixon and Kevin H. Dixon $100
USB Letters and Politics Mondo Pack $200
COMBO Book + USB $280
The post The Epic of Gilgamesh appeared first on KPFA.
Previous Episode
The Role of the U.S. in the Current Honduran Crisis
We are in conversation about the history of the U.S. involvement in Honduras and how that history helps explain why Hondurans are fleeing their country and seeking asylum in United States. We talk about how the U.S. has spend more than a century using the Honduran territory to exploit its land and people in the Banana plantations with the United Fruit Company and mining companies, to using military bases for both, to overthrow a democratic elected president in Guatemala in the 1950’s and to counter the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980’s. And more recently, to oust Honduran president Manuel Zelaya.
Guest: Dana Frank is Professor of History Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America. Her latest is The Long Honduran Night.
About the Long Honduran Night
The book directly counters mainstream media coverage that portrays Honduras as a pit of unrelenting awfulness, in which powerless people sob in the face of unexplained violence. Rather, it’s about sobering challenges with roots in historical and political processes, and the inspiring collective strength with which people face them. An important piece of information that explains why currently Hondurans are fleeing their country.
Support KPFA, Donate Today!
BOOK The Long Honduran Night by Dana Frank $100
DVD When Banana Ruled by Mathilde Damoisel $150
MP3 CD Best of Letters & Politics 2018 Pack $100
USB Letters & Politics Mondo Pack (Includes all L+P Packs) $200
COMBO: The Book, DVD & MP3 CD $300
The post The Role of the U.S. in the Current Honduran Crisis appeared first on KPFA.
Next Episode
Fun Drive Special – Top 2018 Book Collection
Letters and Politics is offering the 5 best books we have reviewed in 2018 Pack for $500.
Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University professor, and a world-renowned Shakespeare scholar.
Stephen Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the catastrophic consequences of its execution. In his book, Greenblatt delivers his own critique of the current occupant of the White House, amazingly, he doesn’t even have to mention his name. We all know it! The parallels seem obvious.
How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley, is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University.
The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey.
Barracon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah G. Plant, Alice Walker (Foreword).
A Radical History of the World by Neil Faulkner.
MP3 CD Best of Letters & Politics 2018 Pack $100
Letters & Politics Mondo Pack (Includes all L+P Packs) USB$200
Best of Letters and Politics 2018 Book Collection + USB$650
The post Fun Drive Special – Top 2018 Book Collection appeared first on KPFA.
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