Ep18 Portraits of Landscapes

Highlighting some of the amazing achievements and highlights of the Tang Dynasty, and considering its eventual decline and fall. 

The home of the Tang – the great city of Chang’an, and how it helped the Tang become so prosperous. 

A discussion on the source material used for the Tang Dynasty episode, plus a brief look at what's ahead in 2024, plus some information about the challenges of writing chronological medieval history and pronouncing words in different languages that you have no knowledge of ...

1750 - 1046 BCE - Plotting the rise and fall of the Shang dynasty where archaeology meets traditional stories.  An incredible bronze age with innovative techniques and the comparison of cultural advances with the rest of the world. 

Curtis Runstedler's book Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) explores the different functions and metaphorical concepts of alchemy in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English poetry and bridges them together with the exempl ...  Afficher plus

Irina Mashinski is a bilingual Russophone American writer, poet, essayist, teacher, and translator, whose works include Giornata and eleven books of poetry and essays in Russian. She is also the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. In this episode, Irina talks with Ja ...  Afficher plus