Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, telling the story of one of history’s most famous events. In this tense political thriller, the Roman senator Brutus must decide whether to assassinate the powerful military general Julius Caesar in order to save Roman Republic — and the audience must decide whether Brutus made the right choice. In thi ... Show More
Nov 17
Lester D. Friedman, "Citizen Spielberg" (U of Illinois Press, 2022)
Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of Spielberg as a Barnumesque purveyor of spectacle, Lester D. Friedman presents the filmmaker as a major artist who pairs an ongoing ... Show More
48m 48s
Nov 16
Christina Lane, "Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock" (Chicago Review Press, 2020)
A platinum beauty with an ugly secret; a tall, dark, and handsome husband with murder in his eyes; starkly lit interiors that may or may not include the silhouette of a rotund British gentleman…. This may sound like a catalog of images from the films of Alfred Hitchcock, but it i ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 16
Páraic Kerrigan, "LGBTQ Visibility, Media and Sexuality in Ireland" (Routledge, 2020)
“We know what we want, and one day, our prince will come,” says Toby, the bicycle-shorts-wearing, double ententre-making, unacknowledgely-gay neighbor in RTE’s Upwardly Mobile. Though the first queer characters in Irish entertainment television were tropes and stereotypes, they r ... Show More
1h 13m
Feb 2024
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
<p><em>“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar.”</em></p><p>On this episode, Dr. Junius Johnson and Fr. Wesley Walker sit ... Show More
1h 17m
May 2025
Hermes Historia: AUT-- Wait, What Did He Say?! Modern Reception of Julius Caesar
In today's Hermes Historia special episode Michaela Pangowish breaks down the phrase 'AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL' and the way we understand Julius Caesar today. Caesars, dictators, billionaire oligarchies are bad, actually. For more Hermes Historia episodes (typically co-hosted by Liv! ... Show More
40m 54s
Apr 2021
EP01 - In the Middle of a Murder | Shakespeare, "Macbeth"
Macbeth, Act Two, Scene Two. In the inaugural episode of Professing Literature we examine a conversation held in the aftermath of one of literature’s most famous murders. Macbeth has just stabbed a king to gain a throne he will never sit upon securely. His tense exchange of wo ... Show More
1h 5m
Jan 2025
534. Emperors of Rome: Sex Secrets of the Caesars (Part 1)
The Roman historian Suetonius’ The Lives of the Caesars, written during the early imperial period of the Roman Empire, is a seminal biography covering the biographies of the early emperors of Rome, during two spectacular centuries of Roman history. Delving deep into the personal ... Show More
53m 41s