A conversation with Mark Roosien (Yale University) about the earthquakes that struck Constantinople in late antiquity and about how emperors and the people of the City reacted to them in the moment. We focus on the church liturgies that commemorated and tried to make sense of them. The conversation is based on Mark's book Ritual and Earthquakes in Constantin ... Show More
Nov 20
144. The two millennia of Roman history, with Ed Watts
<p>A conversation with Ed Watts (University of California, San Diego) about his recent book, The Romans: A 2,000 Year History (Basic Books 2025), which covers two millennia of Roman history, down to 1204 AD. We talk about questions of scale in writing history, of continuity and d ... Show More
1h 7m
Apr 2017
Anna Harwell Celenza, “Jazz Italian Style: From its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
In her new book, Jazz Italian Style: From its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Anna Harwell Celenza examines the arrival of jazz in Italy after World War I and the role of Mussolini in promoting jazz throughout Italy in the 1 ... Show More
55m 56s
Apr 2024
Season 3, Episode 6: Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages
Join Professors Jeffrey Sachs and an expert on religious conflict, Richard E. Rubenstein as they discuss Rubenstein’s book, Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages. Rubenstein skillfully guides us th ... Show More
48m 49s
Feb 2024
Class 2: The Heritage of the Enlightenment
“Our Western heritage is reason—reason, analysis, action, progress!” –Settembrini the organ-grinder in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. HIST 271/HUMS 339: European Intellectual History since Nietzsche is a survey course designed to introduce students to the dominant trends in mo ... Show More
47m 7s
Apr 2024
Vaia Touna and Richard Newton, "Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists (Bloomsbury, 2023) introduces students to the so-called classics of the field from the 19th and 20th centuries, whilst challenging readers to apply a critical lens. Instead of representing scholars and t ... Show More
56m 4s
Aug 2024
Human Sinfulness and the Study of the Past w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. & Prof. Brad Gregory
Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Brad Gregory about intellectual genealogy, what virtues are needed for historians, the unintended consequences of the Reformation, and the theological implic ... Show More
53m 45s
May 2022
Susan Westhafer Furukawa, "The Afterlife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Historical Fiction and Popular Culture in Japan" (Harvard UP, 2022)
Popular representations of the past are everywhere in Japan, from cell phone charms to manga, from television dramas to video games to young people dressed as their favorite historical figures hanging out in the hip Harajuku district. But how does this mass consumption of the pas ... Show More
40 m