Podcasts Education Self-Improvement Conversations with Tyler Shadi Bartsch on the Classics and China

Shadi Bartsch on the Classics and China

Published: April 21, 2021, 11:38 a.m.

A self-professed nerd, the young Shadi Bartsch could be found awake late at night, reading Latin under the covers of her bed by flashlight. Now a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, Dr. Bartsch is one of the best-known classicists in America and recently published her own translation of Virgil\u2019s Aeneid. Widely regarded for her writing on Seneca, Lucan, and Persius, her next book focuses on Chinese interpretations of classic literature and their influence on political thought in China.

Shadi joined Tyler to discuss reading the classics as someone who is half-Persian, the difference between Homer and Virgil\u2019s underworlds, the reasons so many women are redefining Virgil\u2019s Aeneid, the best way to learn Latin, why you must be in a room with a native speaker to learn Mandarin, the question of Seneca\u2019s hypocrisy, what it means to \u201cwave the wand of Hermes\u201d, why Lucan begins his epic The Civil War with \u201cfake news\u201d, the line from Henry Purcell\u2019s aria that moves her to tears, her biggest takeaway from being the daughter of an accomplished UN economist, the ancient text she\u2019s most hopeful that new technology will help us discover, the appeal of Strauss to some contemporary Chinese intellectuals, the reasons some consider the history of Athens a better allegory for America than that of Rome, the Thucydides Trap, the magical \u201cpresentness\u201d of ancient history she\u2019s found in Italy and Jerusalem, her forthcoming book Plato Goes to China, and more.

Read a\xa0full transcript\xa0enhanced with helpful links, or watch the\xa0full video.

Recorded March 16th, 2022

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