Category Archives: Assorted Links

The founder of Trader Joe’s, the grocery chain, wrote a memoir that’s “a lot of fun.” I’d believe it! Incredible saga of a gay ex-priest Latin translator employed by… The Vatican. Chicago Tribune review of Zena Hitz’s Lost in Thought, which … Continue reading →

Rebecca Futo Kennedy has an open letter to the Society for Classical Studies, which helped me think about “classics programs that prepares students for graduate work & academia” as opposed to “classics programs that feed an interest in the ancient … Continue reading →

Review of “The Book Smugglers.” The war on the Classics: a counterpunch, literally, to the recent Princeton news. “I suspect that Classics is a subject that over more than a millennium, or maybe over two, has actually thrived on the … Continue reading →

High schooler’s essay on intellectual friendship. “…America’s Founding Fathers were, in a sense, a group of intellectual friends who acted on their shared intellectual ideals.” The best books on the industrial revolution. Interesting tidbit for yours truly in this FT … Continue reading →

Princeton released a statement about their new language requirements in the classics department (update to my original post). How I Taught The Iliad to Chinese Teenagers. Profiles of Mary Beard continue to be delightful. The New York Times Magazine profiled the “Cambridge classics professor, … Continue reading →

New (to me): The bookstore at St. John’s College has a category for faculty-written books. Nonfiction you may have missed because #GlobalPandemic. “Muhua Yang ’21 says [Ovid’s] work resonates in an era of global displacement — and COVID.” (I think … Continue reading →

I’ve been reading and enjoying Not All Dead White Men, Donna Zuckerberg’s book on misogyny in the Classics. “[N]obody denies that our society owes a debt to the Greeks. The question is how that debt should be treated. Should we romanticize … Continue reading →

Maybe it’s just that it’s been a few days since I did one of these, but it seems like there’s a lot of material… An argument for deleting your Goodreads account. Sylvana Tomaselli, a tutor at St. John’s, discusses Mary … Continue reading →

I’ll write a longer thing on Beowulf shortly, but over the weekend I read Toni Morrison’s excellent essay “Grendel and His Mother,” which helped me understand the story more. Are star ratings worthwhile? Rebecca Futo Kennedy, a professor of ancient Greek … Continue reading →

Jeremy Tate on the classics for National Review. Ross Douthat: “Where have all the great thinkers gone?” Also, “Where have all the Great Works gone?” Top 10 creepiest gothic novels, if that’s your cup of tea… The movement to save the … Continue reading →