MBC-011-INFERNO by Dante

02/08/21 • 39 min

GUEST William Cook is Professor of History, SUNY Geneseo (Retired). Professor Cook earned his PhD in History from Cornell and taught Medieval History for 42 years, lecturing and writing on Dante extensively for a variety of different audiences. Bill now runs the William Cook Foundation which provides educational opportunities in low resource communities. SHOW NOTES Profound lesson from teaching Dante to murderers [2:15] Overcoming the bitterness of factionalism [5:15] Dante's identity and the bygone Roman Empire [12:30] Hearing the Italian and breaking down structure [17:45] Good translations and don't get lost in the notes [20:30] Free Will understanding who you are [23:00] The journey of conversion [26:50] Finding your place in the Divine Comedy [33:15] Plug for the great work of the Bill Cook Foundation [37:00]

Previous Episode

MBC-010 PARADISE LOST by Milton

Our guest for this episode is Professor Stanley Fish, who became one of the world's leading scholars of the work of John Milton upon the publication of Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost in 1967. His scholarly work on Milton is collected in the 2001 book How Milton Works. He has also solidified himself as one of the formidable public intellectuals of the last fifty years. SHOW NOTES How to accidentally becoming a world-class expert on Milton [2:00] A bracing description of how the character of Satan works [4:30] Viewing Satan after realizing you've been duped [12:30] Milton's techniques for describing the indescribable [16:23] Paradise Lost as a presentation of the political and cultural conflicts [20:28] Introducing George Herbert: champion of stringency of thought [27:00] The core challenge of cultural literacy in the 21st century [30:50] An individual's intimate and immediate relationship to liberty [37:42] Inner versus worldly prosperity. Achieving the paradise within [41:50]

Next Episode

MBC-012-THE ODYSSEY by Homer

Guest:
Emily Austin is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, and author of Grief and the Hero: the Futility of Longing in the Iliad. Her area of expertise is emotion in the ancient world.

Show Notes:
Greek concepts of Hell [3:45]

Repeating patterns of grief giving rise to anger [5:30]

Digging into the character of Odysseus [14:20]

Alice Oswald's Memorial as powerful excavation of Homer [16:450

Contemporary echoes of Electra [18:00]

Jonathan Shay on Homer, PTSD, and Vietnam [20:00]

Professor Austin's Odyssey translation recommendation:
Robert Fitzgerald