The Greeks and the Philosopher Kings

Building upon our exploration of gender in Islamic history we dive into the topic of gender bending and how it can help us see gender as socially constructed, historically contingent, and contextual. We explore multiple figures throughout Islamic history from the ghulamiyya to th ...  Show more

Continuing our exploration of gender and sexuality in Islamic history we turn to the figure of the mukhannathun, a third gender category in early Islam. We trace ideas of gender as a fluid spectrum through the lives of these individuals examining their existence in the life of Mu ...  Show more

In this episode, we take a look at Creation, according to the Greeks; the Titanomachia, the Gigantomachia, and the ascendancy of the Olympian Gods; the creation of the first humans; the story of Prometheus and the first woman, Pandora; Deucalion and the great flood; and the pr ...

In this episode, we discuss Spartan imperial policy at home and abroad in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War from 404-396 BC, including the overreaching imperial ambitions of Lysandros and his political downfall; Sparta's retribution and influence operations in the Peloponnes ...  Show more

In this episode, we discuss the political struggle between Isagoras (who was now backed by the Spartan military) and Kleisthenes who ultimately was victorious, which allowed him to institute his overhaul of the Athenian constitution; the different democratic changes that he in ...

<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The first part of this episode is a brief introduction to the podcast (who I am, what my motivation is for doing this, and what I hope to achieve), and in the second part, we describe the geography of Greece (Hellas) and its natural resources</sp ...