Literature and History

Literature and History

84 episodes

With millions of downloads, hundreds of hours of soundtracked content, and an overall emphasis on the cultural history behind famous works of literature, Literature and History is one of the most popular independent podcasts on its subject. Starting with Sumerian cuneiform in 3,100 BCE, Literature and History moves forward in chronological order through Assyriology, Egyptology, the Old Testament, Ancient Greece and Rome, and the birth of Christianity. The show's current season is on Late Antiquity (or 200-700 CE) and the dawn of the Middle Ages. A typical episode (they average about two hours) features a general introduction to a work of literature, then a full summary of that work that expects no prior knowledge, and finally, an analysis of the cultural, biographical, and historical forces that gave rise to the work in question. Original symphonic and ambient background music is woven throughout each show, and all episodes offer free full, illustrated, footnoted transcriptions as well as quizzes for purposes of review. The show has no advertisements, and its host takes pride in a professional approach that avoids chitchat and ephemera and gets straight to the educational content. You can listen to the episodes in any order, although most listeners begin at the beginning and proceed from there, as the podcast itself is chronologically organized. Doug Metzger finished his Ph.D. in literature in 2011. His chief scholarly interest, following his dissertation work, continues to be 19th-century realism and postbellum American philosophy.

Podcasts

Episode 103: Boethius

Published: Sept. 22, 2023, 1:44 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 21 minutes 10 seconds

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Episode 102: An Old Man's Book (Augustine's City of God, Part 2 of 2)

Published: March 4, 2023, 5:19 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 27 minutes 38 seconds

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Episode 101: Against the Pagans (Augustine's City of God, Part 1 of 2)

Published: Feb. 4, 2023, 6:24 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes 31 seconds

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Episode 100: Late Have I Loved You (Augustine's Confessions, Books 9-13)

Published: Dec. 30, 2022, 10:24 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 5 minutes 20 seconds

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Episode 99: The Boy Who Stole Pears (Augustine's Confessions, Books 1-7)

Published: Dec. 10, 2022, 5:32 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes 25 seconds

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Episode 98: The Life and Works of Saint Jerome

Published: Nov. 11, 2022, 7:05 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 9 minutes 43 seconds

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Episode 97: Blood and Ivy (Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Books 25-48)

Published: May 8, 2022, 5:53 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 32 minutes 27 seconds

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Episode 96: The Last Pagan Epic (Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Books 1-24)

Published: Oct. 31, 2021, 11:18 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 13 minutes 58 seconds

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Episode 95: Rutilius Namatianus

Published: Oct. 17, 2021, 10:13 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 2 minutes 49 seconds

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Episode 94: Ausonius

Published: Sept. 12, 2021, 8:55 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 53 minutes 16 seconds

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Episode 93: Severus' Life of Saint Martin

Published: Aug. 18, 2021, 1:49 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 57 minutes 50 seconds

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Episode 92: Athanasius' Life of Antony

Published: Aug. 8, 2021, 9:29 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes 20 seconds

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Episode 91: The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

Published: July 25, 2021, 7:13 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 12 minutes 15 seconds

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Episode 90: Ante-Nicene Catholicism

Published: July 4, 2021, 7:41 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 4 minutes 22 seconds

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Episode 89: The Aethiopica of Heliodorus

Published: June 19, 2021, 8:54 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 12 minutes 29 seconds

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Episode 88: Ancient Greek Sci-fi

Published: May 21, 2021, 11:19 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes 58 seconds

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Episode 87: Lucian of Samosata

Published: May 7, 2021, 11:44 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 42 minutes 6 seconds

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Episode 86: An Introduction to Late Antiquity

Published: April 25, 2021, 10:13 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 22 minutes 55 seconds

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Episode 85: River

Published: April 4, 2021, 4:47 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 56 minutes 26 seconds

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Episode 84: Manichaeism

Published: March 14, 2021, 11:21 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 58 minutes 32 seconds

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Episode 83: Gnosticism

Published: Feb. 28, 2021, 7:58 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes 35 seconds

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Episode 82: Zoroastrianism

Published: Jan. 31, 2021, 11:31 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 19 minutes 26 seconds

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Episode 81: Revelation

Published: Jan. 10, 2021, 5:07 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 17 minutes 59 seconds

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Episode 80: The General Epistles

Published: Oct. 14, 2020, 2:11 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 3 minutes 36 seconds

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Episode 79: The Pauline Epistles

Published: Sept. 25, 2020, 7:18 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 17 minutes 2 seconds

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Episode 78: The Book of Acts

Published: Sept. 11, 2020, 10:16 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes 35 seconds

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Episode 77: The Gospels

Published: June 30, 2020, 4:33 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 40 minutes 8 seconds

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Episode 76: Judea Under Herod

Published: June 7, 2020, 11:10 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 51 minutes 58 seconds

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Episode 75: Dusk and Starlight

Published: April 25, 2020, 12:18 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes 24 seconds

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Episode 74: Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations)

Published: March 14, 2020, 7:17 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 51 minutes 6 seconds

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Episode 73: The Golden Ass (Apuleius' The Golden Ass)

Published: Feb. 29, 2020, 1:53 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 34 minutes 31 seconds

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Episode 72: Bread and Circuses (Juvenal's Satires)

Published: Feb. 14, 2020, 4:56 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 51 minutes 16 seconds

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Episode 71: The Gods Depart (Statius' Thebaid)

Published: Jan. 29, 2020, 8:34 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 16 minutes 30 seconds

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Episode 70: Rome's Forgotten Epic (Statius' Thebaid)

Published: Sept. 9, 2019, 2:01 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes 5 seconds

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Episode 69: Rome's Comic Novel (Petronius' Satyricon)

Published: Aug. 26, 2019, 1:55 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 9 seconds

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Episode 68: Love Means Sin (Seneca's Phaedra)

Published: Aug. 5, 2019, 1:09 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 34 minutes 31 seconds

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Episode 67: Jaws Dripping Blood (Seneca's Thyestes)

Published: July 17, 2019, 5:37 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 12 minutes 49 seconds

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Episode 66: Stoicism, Seneca, St. Paul

Published: June 26, 2019, 9:17 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 34 minutes 20 seconds

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Episode 65: Seneca and the Julio-Claudians (The Life of Seneca)

Published: March 30, 2019, 5:20 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes 35 seconds

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Episode 64: Ovid's Exile (The Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto)

Published: Feb. 23, 2019, 1:34 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 39 minutes 28 seconds

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Episode 63: All Is in Flux (Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 11-15)

Published: Feb. 8, 2019, 2:29 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 11 minutes 19 seconds

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Episode 62: A Curious Passion (Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 6-10)

Published: Jan. 27, 2019, 11:23 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes 41 seconds

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Episode 61: Changes of Shape (Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books 1-5)

Published: Jan. 14, 2019, 3:04 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 14 minutes 33 seconds

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Episode 60: How to Make Love to a Roman (Ovid's Art of Love and Cure for Love)

Published: Dec. 10, 2018, 6:32 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 49 minutes 31 seconds

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Episode 59: Early Ovid (Amores, Heroides)

Published: Nov. 13, 2018, 11:34 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes 10 seconds

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Episode 58: She Caught Me with Her Eyes (Propertius' Poetry)

Published: Oct. 10, 2018, 7:42 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 43 minutes 42 seconds

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Episode 57: The World Grows Dim and Black (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 10-12)

Published: Sept. 1, 2018, 12:11 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 58 minutes 25 seconds

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Episode 56: I Shall Release Hell (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 7-9)

Published: Aug. 13, 2018, 8:52 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 58 minutes 23 seconds

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Episode 55: Among the Shades (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 4-6)

Published: July 6, 2018, 11:09 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 23 minutes 3 seconds

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Episode 54: Out of Troy (Virgil's Aeneid, Books 1-3)

Published: May 31, 2018, 8:54 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 12 minutes 33 seconds

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Episode 53: Then Came Hard Iron (Virgil's Georgics)

Published: May 4, 2018, 4:56 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 52 minutes 55 seconds

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Episode 52: White Flowers Die (Virgil's Eclogues)

Published: April 12, 2018, 12:18 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 49 minutes 40 seconds

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Episode 51: Horace and Augustan Age Poetry

Published: March 19, 2018, 8:51 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 42 minutes 49 seconds

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Episode 50: Our Brutal Age (Horace's Poetry)

Published: Feb. 19, 2018, 1:47 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 51 minutes 22 seconds

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Episode 49: The Strange Roots of Love (Catullus' Poetry)

Published: Jan. 31, 2018, 1:24 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes

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Episode 48: The Right and the Expedient (Cicero's Career, 62-43 BCE)

Published: Jan. 15, 2018, 3:04 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes 28 seconds

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Episode 47: O Tempora, O Mores (Cicero's Career, 80-62 BCE)

Published: Dec. 20, 2017, 4:53 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 41 minutes 37 seconds

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Episode 46: The Republic at Twilight (Cicero's Early Life)

Published: Dec. 9, 2017, 6:19 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 33 minutes 37 seconds

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Episode 45: The Uncuttables (Lucretius' On the Nature of Things and Epicureanism)

Published: Nov. 16, 2017, 2:29 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 49 minutes 49 seconds

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Episode 44: Homo Sum (Terence's The Brothers)

Published: Oct. 20, 2017, 1:48 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes 17 seconds

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Episode 43: On the Move (Plautus' The Rope)

Published: Sept. 29, 2017, 2:14 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes 15 seconds

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Episode 42: The Beginnings of Roman Literature

Published: Sept. 17, 2017, 8:57 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes 13 seconds

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Episode 41: Everything So Far

Published: May 3, 2017, 12:48 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 19 minutes 59 seconds

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Episode 40: Hellenism and the Birth of the Self

Published: April 24, 2017, 8:40 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 54 minutes 41 seconds

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Episode 39: Medea and the Argonauts (Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts)

Published: April 4, 2017, 8:49 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes 32 seconds

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Episode 38: The Epic Anti-Hero (Apollonius' Jason and the Argonauts)

Published: March 22, 2017, 12:49 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 51 minutes 46 seconds

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Episode 37: The New Comedy (Menander's Old Cantankerous)

Published: March 3, 2017, 9:50 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes 18 seconds

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Episode 36: War and Peace and Sex (Aristophanes' Lysistrata)

Published: Feb. 22, 2017, 9:48 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 40 minutes 27 seconds

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Episode 35: The Great Thundercrap (Aristophanes' The Clouds)

Published: Feb. 7, 2017, 9:57 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes 42 seconds

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Episode 34: The Traditions of Our Forefathers (Euripides' The Bacchae)

Published: Jan. 24, 2017, 10:22 p.m.
Duration: 2 hours 6 minutes 22 seconds

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Episode 33: Woman the Barbarian (Euripides' Medea)

Published: Jan. 5, 2017, 1:18 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 56 minutes 35 seconds

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Episode 32: Trees Bending to the Torrent (Sophocles' Antigone)

Published: Dec. 21, 2016, 9:56 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 59 minutes 57 seconds

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Episode 31: The Requiem at Athens (Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus)

Published: Dec. 7, 2016, 9:48 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 29 minutes 28 seconds

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Episode 30: Two Legs in the Afternoon (Sophocles' Oedipus the King)

Published: Nov. 23, 2016, 10:27 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 54 minutes 58 seconds

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Episode 29: The Mound and the Furies (Aeschylus' The Eumenides)

Published: Nov. 11, 2016, 1:42 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes 31 seconds

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Episode 28: A Mother's Curse (Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers)

Published: Oct. 27, 2016, 12:39 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 36 minutes 35 seconds

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Episode 27: The Bloody King (Aeschylus' Agamemnon)

Published: Oct. 14, 2016, 4:56 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 53 minutes 7 seconds

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Episode 26: Ancient Greek Theater (The History of 5th-Century BCE Athenian Drama)

Published: Sept. 30, 2016, 12:35 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 39 minutes 6 seconds

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Episode 25: Lyrical Ballistics (Sappho, Pindar, Archilochus, and Greek Lyric Poetry)

Published: Sept. 15, 2016, 2:18 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes 9 seconds

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Episode 24: God May Relent (The Bible's Prophetic Books)

Published: Sept. 1, 2016, 12:37 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 53 minutes 18 seconds

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Episode 23: Love. Desire. Exegesis. (The Song of Songs/Solomon)

Published: Aug. 25, 2016, 1:11 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 17 minutes 57 seconds

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Episode 22: Fatalism (The Book of Ecclesiastes)

Published: Aug. 16, 2016, 3:43 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 33 minutes 45 seconds

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Episode 21: The Bible's Magic Trick (The Book of Psalms)

Published: July 27, 2016, 1:59 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 24 minutes 28 seconds

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Episode 20: The Problem of Evil (The Book of Job)

Published: July 15, 2016, 1:27 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes 30 seconds

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Episode 19: The One Who Struggles with God (The Historical Books and Biblical Archaeology)

Published: June 29, 2016, 4:29 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 8 minutes 30 seconds

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Episode 18: The 613 Commandments (The Pentateuch's Prescriptive Materials)

Published: June 15, 2016, 4:27 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 44 minutes 18 seconds

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Episode 17: Roots of the Pentateuch (The Pentateuch and Comparative Mythography)

Published: June 1, 2016, 7 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 56 minutes 14 seconds

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Episode 16: Four Main Parts (Introduction to the Bible's Structure)

Published: May 25, 2016, 8:23 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 13 minutes 31 seconds

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Episode 15: Canaan (Biblical History and Archaeology)

Published: May 13, 2016, 5:34 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 32 minutes 10 seconds

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Episode 14: The Autumn Leaves (Homer's Odyssey, Books 17-24)

Published: April 27, 2016, 4:37 a.m.
Duration: 2 hours 11 minutes 7 seconds

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Episode 13: His Mind Teeming (Homer's Odyssey, Books 9-16)

Published: April 19, 2016, 5:32 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 48 minutes 2 seconds

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Episode 12: Kleos and Nostos (Homer's Odyssey, Books 1-8)

Published: April 13, 2016, 2:16 p.m.
Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes 17 seconds

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Episode 11: Who Was Homer? (Homer's Iliad, Books 17-24)

Published: March 27, 2016, 5:23 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 41 minutes 23 seconds

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Episode 10: Homer's Gods (Homer's Iliad, Books 9-16)

Published: March 27, 2016, 5:14 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes 13 seconds

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Episode 9: Glittering Bronze Men (Homer's Iliad, Books 1-8)

Published: March 27, 2016, 5:05 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes 59 seconds

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Episode 8: Before Orthodoxy (Hesiod's Theogony)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 1:29 a.m.
Duration: 56 minutes 55 seconds

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Episode 7: Hesiod's Lands and Seasons (Hesiod's Works and Days)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 1:15 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes 24 seconds

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Episode 6: The Pros and Cons of Wisdom (Ancient Egypt's Wisdom Literature)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 1:08 a.m.
Duration: 48 minutes 54 seconds

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Episode 5: Beneath the Obelisks (Ancient Egyptian Fiction)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 1:04 a.m.
Duration: 52 minutes 37 seconds

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Episode 4: Divine Judgment (The Book of the Dead)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 12:58 a.m.
Duration: 48 minutes 20 seconds

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Episode 3: He Who Saw the Deep (The Epic of Gilgamesh)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 12:51 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 1 minute 1 second

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Episode 2: Before the Flood (The Enuma Elish and Atrahasis)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 12:23 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 11 minutes 8 seconds

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Episode 1: The Tower of Babel (Cuneiform)

Published: Feb. 12, 2016, 12:10 a.m.
Duration: 1 hour 28 minutes 9 seconds

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