Conversations: It Turns Out Women Are People, Women's Collective Memory w/ Emily Hauser

Liv speaks with Emily Hauser about... Women. Ancient and mythological women, the ways they shared stories, and collective memory. Learn more about the Memory Collective Standard Episode: Submit your question for the next Q&A via email or a voice note. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it. Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

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• 2:10Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host Liv here with another conversation episode. Now, today's episode is with returning guest who will also be returning next month, Emily Hauser. When we recorded back in the fall, honestly, we just had, had to talk again. And so we recorded an episode that's coming up next month about Emily's new book Mythica, or Penelope's Bones, it's called, in North America, which I'm also very excited about. But we also just wanted to have an episode where we just kind of

• 2:50Liv Albert?

  talked about women in the ancient world. I did originally have it, it was going to be more structured, I guess is what I'm saying here. But, um, you know, everything is scary right now and pretty terrible. And I'm, um, you know, we're doing well over here, you know, all things considered. And I'm really excited about the places that, that we're going to go with the show and the collective and everything. But at the same time, you know, um, it's tough. It's tough right now. And as you'll hear at the beginning of this

• 3:32Liv Albert?

  episode, because I'm keeping it in, because I think it's important, I kind of wanted to give, or other I did give like a little, a little bit of insight into where I am personally right now, because there's just been some stuff in my life with a very good friend of mine and a now ex friend of mine who, anyway, you'll, you'll hear a little bit, I'm feeling very distrustful of men, because they just keep giving me reasons to. And that has impacted this conversation. So I'm just going to be honest about that.

• 4:12Liv Albert?

  It is a really good, it is a really good conversation on women in the ancient world in terms of them as real people who had real stories to tell and also the ways that we can kind of pick out pieces of those stories, both from the epics and the mythology that does survive, as well as whatever else we have. It's a really, really kind of all over the place conversation, but really interesting and Emily and I had a great time. And I think it's just really important to talk about women in the ancient world in this way where maybe we're not talking about anyone so specifically, but just the very nature of

• 4:53Liv Albert?

  of existing as a woman in the ancient world, because in so many cases, we're kind of expected to believe they just sort of weren't there, or they weren't saying anything, or they weren't telling stories. And that's ridiculous. And so, you know, today's episode, we just, we kind of talk about them in, in whatever ways we could. You can read more from Emily in both her book, How Women Became Poets, which we had a great conversation about back in the fall, like I said, and a new one coming out in just a few weeks. In the UK, it is called Mythica, and in North America, it is called Penelope's Bones. And both of those, if you can believe it, are also about women in the ancient world.

• 5:38Liv Albert?

  And yeah, it's, it's really, it's really important stuff. Now more than ever, I've, you know, it's, it's hard to record introductions at this time. Stay tuned. The Collective is going to be doing some really great stuff where we are trying to bring any, anything in this realm kind of into one place, both so that we, as the creators and, and the historians of this work. You know, can feel connected and can collaborate on on this this type of of information and content, but also so that you all listening can find so much of it in one place. People

• 6:21Liv Albert?

  who give a shit. For lack of more detail right now, people who give a shit and who are providing historical insights, access, whatever to the ancient world and hopefully eventually beyond. This is entirely a labor of love. I've said this before. I'll say it again. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just doing it because I think it has to exist. And so that's mentioned also in this episode. You can learn more at collective mem. That's M E M collectivemem.com. It's like collective memory, except that was like $20,000. I'm sure I've said different

• 7:01Liv Albert?

  amounts every time I've made that joke. Collectivemem.com. And for now, sit back and listen to a really interesting and fun and funny and also, you know, at times, pretty terrible conversation about women in the ancient world. But ultimately, we came out, I think, the better for it. And and you will too. And dudes, if you're listening,

• 7:31Liv Albert?

  give us a reason to trust your species because

• 7:37Liv Albert?

  it's getting tough. It's getting tough. And but I promise I want to. I promise I want to. And so in the anyway, you'll you'll hear it.

• 8:00Liv Albert?

  Conversations. It turns out women are people. Ancient and mythological women with Emily Hauser.

• 8:22Liv Albert?

  This is just gonna be a fun chat about terrible things. Well, terrible, but you know, not terrible.

• 8:28Speaker 07

  Not terrible, but interesting, but deep, but sometimes terrible. Yeah, basically the life of a woman.

• 8:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I've been, I've been like, this is a weird place. I'm gonna like say this into the microphone a little bit because I, it's framing how I'm seeing things right in this moment. And I think it's maybe good for this conversation, or at least it'll motivate me. But over the past week or so, I have been chatting and trying to help a friend long distance, who's husband of 15 years and the father of her two children, has just like essentially blown up their entire life. And like, not only was cheating on her, but essentially like, was just like, a lying manipulative gaslighter, the entire time I've known him and I've known him as long as I've known her. And it's just a lot. It's,

• 9:17Liv Albert?

  I'm a feeling as if I didn't already distrust most men. I'm feeling just, I'm feeling very, very ragey against men right now. So we're gonna talk about women, but also how terrible men have been to them.

• 9:33Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh. But I mean, also, like, when it's one of your friends, you start getting protective as well, don't you? Like, there's also that kind of element of kind of like, mama bear kind of protectiveness comes out. And you're just like, do not hurt my girl, right? I feel like I sympathize.

• 9:49Liv Albert?

  It's, it's all of that. And it's also that I did consider him a friend. And it's the type of manipulation. And I'm conscious, I'm saying it when we're actually recording because I, I actually kind of want it to be part of the show because one of his means of manipulation and gaslighting was to become my podcast's quote unquote, biggest fan. And given my show is all about, you know, I mean, mythology, but in that it is about how women have been taken down by the patriarchy and by the behavior of terrible men. And to just now, so I'm feeling very gaslit by this man in a way that I am just like, I

• 10:33Liv Albert?

  need to channel my rage. Which is why I wanted to say this microphone, because. I don't, I don't know where I'm at, but I needed to say it into this because he's been too aligned with my podcast in a way that I'm feeling like so icky about.

• 10:46Speaker 07

  Ah, and that's, and like, how do you unravel that? Because, you know, like, it's, it's in some way, then it becomes this thing that was about you and your access to women and like lifting women up then becomes something that is also kind of contaminated, if that's not too strong a word, but it becomes wrapped up in this kind of package of exactly what you're trying to like, I don't know, yeah, unpack and, and move away from. So yeah, no, that is, that is, that is tricky.

• 11:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because like I have an undergraduate student right now who's doing um a dissertation on women's anger. And we have started, or like she has started, but kind of I was advising to start actually with Achilles anger. Because obviously like to understand where rage begins, you start with the rage of Achilles in the Iliad. But what I loved was this point that she brought out where she was like, women's anger is often a reaction to the violence that has come out of men's anger. You know, so these two things, they, they like, it's, it's right for you to be angry, but you're being angry because of something that has happened

• 11:59Speaker 07

  from, from, from men and from a kind of much deeper place. So like, I don't know, I just, I feel like there's something there in terms of kind of action, reaction, you know?

• 12:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and this was not how I intended to go in, but you say women's rage and I, my brain screams Clytemnestra or Medea. And I think they're such good examples of exactly how you just phrase that, like the women's rage, but that is coming from the actions of a man. And yet their rage is still the main point that we are meant to take away now, or that like, rather, the, you know, the, the long term, the thousands of years of interpreting these stories have led us to treat it as if Clytemnestra and Medea are just these wild angry women for no reason, or rather that like,

• 12:48Liv Albert?

  their anger is the point rather than the crimes that led to that anger. And I think it's a really good, it's just a good sort of way of looking at the way that women's anger is treated in comparison to men's anger because it's.

• 13:01Speaker 07

  No, that's, that's such a good point in that like it's um. Yeah, it's kind of like for if we if like you contrast it to Achilles and his rage. His rage is in many ways kind of instrumental and it's instrumental to his glory. Um, so like he gets to kind of have his cake and eat it. He gets to exult and he also then gets to kind of have an epic written about him. Um, whereas kind of what ends up happening for women is that if they kind of sit in their rage and in their anger, you're not thinking about the deeds and the memorialization. You're thinking of this or you're encouraged to think of it as kind of, yeah, this is what a woman is.

• 13:46Speaker 07

  It's not what a woman does, it's what a woman is.

• 13:49Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And so, yeah, so different from exactly, yeah, comparing to Achilles rage is so good because it's like.

• 13:56Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 13:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Either you get, you become Clytemnestra, who is, you know, throughout, I I've just been rereading the Odyssey, if you can believe it. Never know.

• 14:06Speaker 07

  What is a grace?

• 14:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And I read the first four books this morning, um, for the first time in a few years. And so, and you know, so you get this Clytemnestra who threw out all of that is like, we just keep being reminded of. I guess it's mostly about a geist this, but it's still, as we get deeper into the the Odyssey, it's really about, you know, Clytemnestra, like how terrible she is and like how, oh, your Penelope is so much better. Like she would never do that. And it's like, just this idea of like, what makes a woman worthy of men's respect, you know? Uh, uh, like Penelope versus Clytemnestra and just the fact that the, any kind of motivation Clytemnestra might have had is irrelevant to the way the men frame her anger.

• 14:48Speaker 07

  Okay, so I, I, that is so on point and I feel like that's something that I have been thinking about a lot. So we were chatting before we came on air about my book, um, How Women Became Poets, which, which came out, um, like a year and a half ago now, but there's one passage in those early four books of the Odyssey that really jumped out to me because I don't know if you remember that bit where Nestor is talking about the safeguards that Agamemnon put on Clytemnestra, um, when he left and he left her in charge. Uh, like in charge of her was a bard. A man singer and right?

• 15:25Liv Albert?

  Yes, I I took that in when I read it this morning and I remember thinking that's so odd and I I even triggered to talk to you about it and then forgot. So thank you.

• 15:32Speaker 07

  Oh, that well, you know, because this wasn't this wasn't planned, guys. Yeah. Why a bard? Why a bard? Exactly. And what's super interesting about it, if we just kind of go deep into it, is that the word that Homer uses there, he uses the word aidos, which means which means bard, um, but it means it means bard man because it's masculine. So like, and I feel like we always always need to put that in, like, it's grammatically gendered. But then he actually adds the word ana as well, which is man. So he's a bard man man. He's like doubly a man in the Greek. Um, and what's super interesting about that is that clearly the bard is being put in place as a kind of enforcer of male values, like that the fact that his masculinity is being

• 16:14Speaker 07

  emphasized. Um, and the way I read it, I'd be interested to hear if you think that that this chimes with you, is that what the bard is doing is that he is not just enforcing her fidelity, he is enforcing Agamemnon's return story. Because if you have a bard who keeps the wife in check and then she does what Penelope does and she waits and the man can have his successful homecoming, then what does he get? He gets a return epic. He gets an odyssey, right? Except you would get the He's preparing, he's preparing. Um, and he's he's safeguarding his epic. And then it kind of goes off the rails. And and what I love about it is that we get that reported to us

• 16:59Speaker 07

  in a successful return epic from another dude. So we've got like this, this, it's not just a competition of the wives, it's a competition of the epics.

• 17:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Ooh. Well, in the way that so much, I guess that's, it wouldn't be in that moment because it's Nestor not, you know, and then Telemachus then goes to Menelaus. But I think of like, obviously, the the story of Menelaus is meant to, you know, connect back to what Nestor has told Telemachus. And so when you get this, like, also comparison between, like, we're talking about, yes, like, the safeguards of Clytemnestra and everything she did. And then we have the Helen of the Odyssey, who is so interesting and so odd and like.

• 17:40Liv Albert?

  I mean, I, she is so, she's so interesting because she is so many different things. Like, she feels like a very different Helen from the Iliad. She is magic, she has magic, she like plays with drugs. And, but also is like the good wife who, who like immediately like regretted going with Paris. And like, all of these things where you get this sense, like, it doesn't feel real so much as it feels like the story that she has told in her self-preservation. And good for her, she did it, you know? And to have that as like that comparison with Clytemnestra, not only as this like just direct comparison of these two brothers whose wives, you know, did very different things, but also that they are sisters, which is also not really like mentioned.

• 18:23Liv Albert?

  It's just sort of you're meant to kind of know or not know, which is interesting.

• 18:28Speaker 07

  No, that's, that's such a good point. And Helen is, is so great also, like in terms of thinking about how women are trying to push back to this fact that men are so busy trying to safeguard how their stories are gonna get told. Cause we've got that great moment, right? Where she gives, and Telemachus, in book 15 of the Odyssey, she gives this, this robe that she's woven. And she said, this is going to be a memory to Helen's hands. And like this idea of memory and poetry, obviously the goddess memory is the, is the mother of the muses and, and poetry orality, like all of this is about memory. So she's like basically vouchsafing her own epic tradition. And she's doing it through the weaving that she herself has done.

• 19:14Speaker 07

  You know, it's, it's in some ways a lot more direct than what Agamemnon does, where he has to like hire a bard man to kind of like wait until he comes back. Helen's just like, I, I actually just made this cloth and this is gonna be what people are gonna remember me by.

• 19:29Liv Albert?

  Oh, I love that. And also you said some magic words. So I don't, this is gonna be, I don't wanna say too much on, well, I can always cut it out. I don't know how, how much I've told you about the collective I've been working on with Michaela.

• 19:42Speaker 07

  Nothing, no, no.

• 19:44Liv Albert?

  Okay, so simultaneously to far too many thing, other things I'm working on, I have been working on founding a collective of historians and creator, people, people doing what I'm doing, what you're doing as well, but you, yours are more book related, but if you ever have anything that's just like free content that you wanna put out there, please, we gotta talk. But it's called The Memory Collective. It is technically called Nemosini, but I am not forcing anyone to pronounce Nemosini.

• 20:10Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 20:10Liv Albert?

  Um, but it is called the Memory Collective, hearkening to that goddess and this idea of memory. Memory compared with the history that has been preserved and passed down and all of the men that had their little fingers in it, right? And just this, the, the main idea of what I want to do is just be a place where people who are working in this, the realm of history, but who have that in their mind, who have basically, I mean, so much that's in, in how women became poets, so much of that, the male influence, you know? And just, I, I'm putting together a place where people can go and find

• 20:50Liv Albert?

  history in whatever form they want to take it in, but which is coming from a place of acknowledging the patriarchal structure and damage and impact on what we know of as history, just the, a, a basic acknowledgement of that is sort of the tenants of being part of this collective. And, you know, there, there's lots more to say about it that I won't, won't try to

• 21:14Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 21:15Liv Albert?

  shove into this episode, but it's funny because, uh, the episode I released on Tuesday, we're recording this on Thursday, it won't come out for another week, but the episode I did was me just kind of rambling about memory as a goddess and a concept.

• 21:30Speaker 07

  Amazing.

• 21:31Liv Albert?

  Um, yeah, for this purpose. So I'm like, no one ever talks about memory as a goddess. So thank you.

• 21:36Speaker 07

  Oh my God. I'm here to serve.

• 21:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah. But I'm so curious, like there's so, yeah, yeah, sorry.

• 21:42Speaker 07

  No, no, no. Yeah, it's so exciting. But what I was gonna say, which is so interesting, is that when we tend to think about memory in terms of like epic poetry, it's a memory that is selective, deliberately selective. It's a memory that, that is like, this person mattered or this object mattered, and therefore I am going to relate to you their ancestry or their tale. Um, often a man, often the man's object. And what I love about your counter vision of memory, and we might also say that that is Helen's counter vision of memory as well, is it's a way of inserting a, a kind of broader.

• 22:28Speaker 07

  Almost archival memory of like, there are these other kind of voices that that haven't been heard and haven't been. So in the in the introduction to Mythica, which is is coming out in, oh, my gosh, four weeks today.

• 22:43Liv Albert?

  And we'll have another episode when it drops. This one will come up before, but we recorded the Mythica one before. It's a whole thing.

• 22:49Speaker 07

  It's it's a whole thing. We were just we were just too excited to talk about that. But, oh, my God. I just realized it's four weeks today. But but yeah, so in the in the introduction to that, I have this quote, which I I really love from Dame Hilary Mantel, who is just an obvious legend, who talks about particularly women as being sieved out of history.

• 23:11Liv Albert?

  And I think Oh, what a good phrase.

• 23:14Speaker 07

  So I mean, that that really for me, I was like, I I get it now, right? Like, you've got this kind of you've got this this tool, this mechanism, and you're saying what deserves to run through it and what deserves to be kept. And it sounds like what you're doing with your push to a different kind of memory is saying, we need to remember that at some point, these were all in the sieve.

• 23:38Speaker 07

  Right?

• 23:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, exactly. Just this like, you know, there's only so much we can do with all of these lost things, but the absolute base level is acknowledging that they're lost. And I think so much of how we learn history as a culture, particularly in the West, is just overtly ignores that. We're taught that this is what it is. This is the history. It's not the history that we have because of 2,000 years of men. It's just the history. And it makes you think like, I don't I don't blame people when they go like, oh, but her story, but like, etymologically, that's just not that's not it. But it is still so relevant, you know, like, it's it's a

• 24:22Liv Albert?

  like, we really, you know, the the women really have just been kind of left out, you know, and it's It's an interesting, I, I, I read the, you have, um, the, the quote that like begins this one too, is the Adrienne Rich.

• 24:38Speaker 07

  Oh, I love that essay.

• 24:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I, I'm gonna read part of it and we'll just hope for copyright sake that I'm fine. But a radical critique of literature feminist in its impulse would take the work first of all, first of all, as a clue to how we live, how we have been living, how we have been led to imagine ourselves, how our language has trapped as well as liberated us, how the very act of naming has been till now a male prerogative, and how we can begin to see and name and therefore live afresh. And yes, that, all of that, like that's, it was funny that I picked that up and I, I've thought of you a lot as we've been fleshing out these things. Because when you, in our last episode, told me just the levels of excluding women from poetry,

• 25:26Liv Albert?

  like, and, and the way that you, I mean, I think about it a lot because, you know, as you said, namosity memory is the mother of the muses. But the muses, as, as again, you like pointed out in this way that I'll never forget, the muses aren't the poets. The muses inspire the poets. But like, the men get all the credit and the, it's, and even I think a lot about how like Apollo is the head of the muses. For no reason other than like he has some vague associations and he's a man and they don't want to give that kind of power to women. And meanwhile, it's like their mother is memory. The muses are all women. Like there are so many things there and you can just kind of feel like them

• 26:07Liv Albert?

  almost like pushing at the seams to get out, like, but they're just being constrained in this way through language and through history, through like preservation and selection and all of these things that mean that we today have been sort of led to believe that the women were just not part of it.

• 26:27Speaker 07

  But you know what?

• 26:28Liv Albert?

  Not there, yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, do you know what I love about that is is that like, maybe that's why their mother is Mnoz, Mnozoni, why she's memory, because at the basic level, it's remember us. Remember that we were here, right? I kind of love that, that that's like, that's the root of the muses is just kind of the basic plea is remember that women and women's songs were there as well. Um, but I just wanted to go back to what you said earlier, because I thought that was such a good and a rich point, and it's something I have been thinking a lot about. Um, in terms of kind of how we present history.

• 27:04Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 27:05Speaker 07

  And indeed myths, um, to younger people, um, how it is formed in curricula. And, um, I was doing a talk last week at Edinburgh for International Women's Day, and we were kind of debating a little bit of this. And the word that kept coming up to me was, um, responsibility. In terms of like, I think that, um, we actually have a responsibility to young people to, um, not underestimate them and not think that they are not capable of understanding that history actually is a kind of narrative that has been forged for specific reasons.

• 27:48Speaker 07

  And I think what what just really bugs me is that things are kind of, for years and years and years at school are presented as like, here is the fact, this is, this is what happened, this is, this is it. And then you kind of like, and you know, obviously, this is a particular bugbear for me, because I, I'm, you know, my day job is at a university, they come to university and you're suddenly like, but no, all of this was, all of this was constructed, all of this was created. And I feel like if there was more work we could do to do that earlier, to, to do that kind of peel away that, um, kind of, yeah, underestimation that is happening of young people where we just say, here are the facts. And like, no, actually, who, who said this was a fact?

• 28:33Speaker 07

  Who created this? Who circum-

• 28:36Liv Albert?

  This evidence, who made this evidence, where was the other evidence? Like, I just feel like that would be so much more of an interesting conversation. That's the thing. It's more interesting and it's more accurate and it's more, it's kinder to the ancient people. It's more realistic to us today because it makes them feel more real. Like, the, the word that keeps coming up to me as I'm working through this collective stuff, which is a thing that I, I feel like it has to exist because especially right now, like, I just think there needs to be a place where we can each, like, also amplify each other because it's really easy to get lost in all of the men yelling. And so just like this, this place for everyone, but I also am like, I have no idea how to build this. And I don't actually think I'm the right person for it because I'm a weirdo introvert,

• 29:20Liv Albert?

  but I'm gonna do it anyway because otherwise I don't think it's gonna exist. But the word I keep using in all of this is, is context. Because I think it's such a, like, a, it's a simple way of putting the, this bigger issue, that we are not taught the context. We are taught the history, quote unquote. We're not taught the context of how that history survives, was preserved, like, all of these things that go into it in order for it to become what we have today, that aren't, nothing about that makes it objective truth. And it, it, it also makes me think, like, that the number of,

• 29:57Liv Albert?

  I'm gonna be very general here, but it's also pretty accurate. But the number of, like, white male historians, and by historians here, I mean, like, public historians, particularly podcasters and things like that. But like, these people who are putting out this kind of content for free or generally accessible. But the, the, these, the men have this fun habit of, like, saying things like, oh, you know, oh, we, we tell the history. I am thinking of someone specific, but that I'm not going to name, but it's, it, but like, I'm trying to think back of what actual, what the actual phrasing was. But there was an article I read where some male historian was like, oh, yeah, you know, we, we, our show is successful because we leave out,

• 30:39Liv Albert?

  we don't bother with, like, the modern morality or the modern lessons. We just talk about the history. And it's like, there is only a very small subset of people being straight white men who are able to do that because the history was made for you, by you.

• 30:58Liv Albert?

  Over millennia, but like it's it it comes from such a bizarre place of privilege that they do not acknowledge at all to be able to say something like that. Or the type, the same goes for like when people try to keep politics out of history. And it's like, the very concept of everything that survives today to be called history is political. Everything that went into it existing now was political. Like it, it takes a level of privilege and also just like being, I think, separated from a certain level of the rest of the world's reality to be able to think that is like a reasonable way of coming at history.

• 31:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, but actually, I also think it's, it's not just about privilege. It's also a fundamental misunderstanding of what history is.

• 31:48Liv Albert?

  Exactly. But I think it's a privilege that allows you to misunderstand, you know? Because a lot, most other, not like everyone, but like most, if you were coming from a place of some kind of adversity, like you typically can't so easily understand that. But like, yes, exactly.

• 32:02Speaker 07

  Like, no, that's, no, that's such a good point. Or it's, oh, it's like that, that's where, that's what leads you into the mistake.

• 32:09Liv Albert?

  Exactly.

• 32:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, that's such a good point. And like, again, kind of returning back to Helen, maybe that's a little bit of the kind of intervention that she is doing. Because one of the things I love, like, that, that I didn't mention when we were talking about that nemah, that, that memory, that monument that she gives to Telemachus, is that she says that it is for Telemachus's bride on her wedding day, and that it needs to be looked after by Telemachus's mother, Penelope. So what she's doing is she's using the man as a vessel, but she is taking her very feminine coded work of her hands, and she is making this tribute to herself, and she's passing it into the female line. And so I feel like that's also in terms of kind of what you were saying about the collective

• 32:53Speaker 07

  and the curation, the community curation, there is kind of this, this history to that, this awareness that.

• 33:00Liv Albert?

  It takes takes a village to make a history. Yeah.

• 33:16Liv Albert?

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• 34:01Liv Albert?

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• 34:43Liv Albert?

  Get free shipping on your order and three sixty-five day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Let's Talk About Myths, baby. It's the best way to support the show.

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• 36:20Liv Albert?

  Well, I've been finding myself feeling very, very smart for using this, but it's not actually. But I've been playing around with, you know, the group is called the Memory Collective. But under all of our little logos, I've just had the words "Collective Memory" kind of grayed out or just sort of like hinted at. And even like our URL. For everyone, check it out. Collectivemem.com, because Collective Memory was like $20,000. So it's Collective Mem. But I think that that's something in there too, you know? Because like I think... I mean, obviously not literal collective memory, but that is, the idea of collective memory is the only real way of getting women's stories like that, like that, this, what Helen

• 37:04Liv Albert?

  is doing by passing that on to Penelope to be passed on to the bride, like that is collective memory, that is sharing memory through these objects and, and very explicitly sharing memory because there is little other way for women to preserve their own stories, like weaving was an enormous part of being able to do that.

• 37:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, do you know what, that's, I, I don't know if this is something that we chatted about before, but like, I'll bring it up anyway, because it's really fun in that, like, obviously, it is really rich and resonant to talk about someone like Helen, who is such an important figure in, in kind of literature and in myth, but she is also always in Homer, a product of a kind of male imagination and a male epic, and it's really important to acknowledge that, like, in as much as she still tries to untether herself, and I think there are readings we can do to untether her, but, but there is that kind of, as you were saying, there is that context. But what I, I was kind of trying, when I was

• 38:09Speaker 07

  doing the research for Mythica, to find what kind of real women might be behind this, and I found this evidence. I don't know if you're familiar with the Imanah letters, the Imanah archive?

• 38:19Liv Albert?

  I know, yes, I know the term, but I'm not too much more.

• 38:23Speaker 07

  No, so yeah, so it's basically this incredible archive that is like really kind of pinpointed to the mid 14th century BCE, from this, this kind of new capital city that one of the pharaohs set up in, in Egypt, and it was kind of like vastly unsuccessful, and so it was abandoned afterwards, which for us is brilliant, because kind of everything got kind of preserved like a time capsule, but it basically, they, one of the things that was preserved was the texts, the diplomatic records from this, from this capital.

• 38:53Liv Albert?

  So like, original texts from 1400?

• 38:56Speaker 07

  Original texts, I know, I know. And, and what's amazing is it's just like diplomatic correspondence between all of the like, big kings of the day, and they're doing all of the big king stuff, they're like, um, you know, I'm so rich, I need to build this temple, you have so much gold, I shall give you my horses if you give me my gold. It's all very kind of like swaggering. But what's really cool is that some of the letters are between queens. And they are exchanging messengers between each other. And there is clearly a kind of parallel messenger service that is going on. And and they are exchanging cloths with each other. And what I love about this and and kind of like try and flesh out in Mythica is that you can see that like

• 39:36Speaker 07

  that community of women's trade, women's networks, collective memory is is happening in history. And we can see that later in Homer, but like, but women were actually doing it. And I think that's like an important point to make.

• 39:53Liv Albert?

  Well, and that's I I'm so glad to have evidence, you know, to have at hand for this because I I think about this all the time, the things that the women were doing that we don't necessarily know about, because it's not like they weren't. And I mean, I've been thinking about this with like a lot of different sort of notions from that world or just the the things that women did. And so I've I've tried to talk a bit about weaving on the show, but without being in a position to spend a lot of time on research. But but this idea of like weaving as this real thing that women could do, not only together, but also to share stories like this. You know, obviously, like Arachne is a very famous one in terms of mythology.

• 40:38Liv Albert?

  And I I talked about that on her on the show again fairly recently. But one of the things that came to me while I was talking about that is, I mean, this is all from Ovid, but still great, you know, references of what what was going on. But I think about, you know, Arachne's story woven into her tapestry, but also the way that's kind of mirrored in Philomela's. Philomela, I don't know how people pronounce her name differently, but yeah, her into her her tapestry and the way that we get this really real idea of how women told stories to each other through their weaving. And I think there's so it's minimal evidence for that elsewhere, because these are things that decay. These are things that don't survive. And so we have to kind of pick at what we have.

• 41:23Liv Albert?

  But I love that we have these Amarna letters that have evidence of that. We have these Ovid myths that show that this was something in the cultural identity of women. But yeah, like there's and Penelope, obviously Helen, like we get so much about like what these women were doing with their lives, even if we can't, you know, we don't have. The type of evidence we would surely love to have, but what we, what we can, like, there's so much to flesh out of that, so much to speculate on that is so reasonable. And, you know, especially as women today, like, I think that there's so much to be said for using our modern experiences to speculate on

• 42:03Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 42:03Liv Albert?

  how that was happening. Like, I think about it in line, too, with the way that I've, it's comes, it gets talked about more and more now, but the way that gossip has been used against us, that gossip as a concept was this way of women sharing themselves with each other, sharing tips and tricks, or red flags, or warnings, like, but it became this thing that, you know, is meant to be, you know, that, that's, that's, has this, like, bad connotation that's silly and insipid, these, these terrible words to describe what was women,

• 42:42Liv Albert?

  you know, utilizing the tools that they had in order to create community, but also keep each other safe and keep themselves safe and all of these things. And the way that that ends up getting used against, you know, against us, or turned into this idea of gossip.

• 42:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, and, and it's a very kind of, yeah, exactly, gendered kind of women's discourse that is, is very negative. No, I think that's such a good point. Well, there is a really good example that will tie in with, like, everything you've been saying, because I don't know if you know this, but there is this amazing, um, sort of fragment of fabric that has survived from the ancient world, from, I think it's the fourth century BCE, and, and it's, it's what's known as a story cloth. And so, and it's basically got, it's like a frieze, a bit like the Bayeux Tapestry, and, and it's like a frieze with, with images of women on it, and one, and the women have names, and one of them is Fedra.

• 43:39Liv Albert?

  Oh my.

• 43:40Speaker 07

  Right, which, you know, talk about kind of like scandalous gossip and like, you know, kind of obviously with with Phaedra's story in the Hippolytus. But what I love about that is that that that and it was found like around the Black Sea region, I think. But like, that is that is real evidence for the fact that women were, they weren't just weaving cloths or weaving patterns, but they were weaving texts into textiles, right? They were, they were, they were generating stories and they were telling stories in this way. And like, I mean, in Homer, we know that women are doing it because Helen is weaving the story of the Trojan War. We never get told what Penelope is weaving, but like, she could absolutely have been weaving a story cloth. And if that was the case, what story was

• 44:22Speaker 07

  she weaving? Like, what kind of epic was she trying to tell? Right? I just think that that's so exciting.

• 44:27Liv Albert?

  Yes. Oh, I, yeah, I, I, I also, it's only recently been, I forget how I learned, and I can't believe I didn't earlier, but I didn't know the origins of the word spinster being.

• 44:41Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 44:41Liv Albert?

  Women who, literally women who had, were able to make a career for themselves in spinning, weaving, by, and then therefore did not have to be married or under a man's thumb. And then the word turned into this terrible connotation of like, a lonely woman. And as somebody who will very proudly, proudly call themselves a spinster, very happily.

• 45:07Speaker 07

  We'll reclaim the term.

• 45:09Liv Albert?

  Hell, yeah. Like, me and my cats, I don't need anything else. But yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's a funny thing, realizing the ways these words, like to go back to the, to the poet, the way these words have been weaponized against us in these ways that you don't see it until you see it. And then, oh my God, it's like, you can't, you can't unsee the ways that like even language has been weaponized against women.

• 45:36Speaker 07

  Absolutely, yeah. I mean, like, the other one that I think of is, I mean, this isn't kind of as much used nowadays, but like the distaff side, right, as a term for kind of the female side of the family. And like, it's, well, that's because what do women do? They, they spin.

• 45:50Liv Albert?

  I did not know that term.

• 45:52Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's really interesting to see how that kind of has, yeah, threaded into our language. Um, and that is something that like affects how women have, have been seen. But then also, I love ways of kind of pushing back against it in that I think people don't really realize that the etymology of text today is from Latin textus, which is like a woven texture, right? It's like, it's why text and textile have the same root.

• 46:22Liv Albert?

  Of course. You say it, and I'm like, of course, but I never would have occurred to me.

• 46:27Speaker 07

  No, but we don't think about it because we just say text, but we don't think about the fact that there are these deep, deep roots that connect. And but whenever we say a written text, we are looking back to kind of the history of women's weaving and the deep, deep interconnection between women's weaving and kind of literature and poetic output.

• 46:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Oh, I love that. I mean, this is a perfect way to gu- guide us deeper into, I think, just any, anything in this realm, but I did see that you have a whole section on Euripides. So is there, now,

• 46:57Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 46:58Liv Albert?

  I mean, if you're gonna tell me that he's not a feminist, maybe we need to stop right now. Um, but I have a feeling you won't. I'm so curious about like any of this kind of, I mean, anything about Euripides as women, but particularly this like language stuff, because you perpetually blow my mind with these.

• 47:14Speaker 07

  Oh, you're so kind, but no, absolutely, absolutely not gonna kind of break your, uh, Euripides streak.

• 47:20Liv Albert?

  He's my perfect love.

• 47:21Speaker 07

  He's, he's your man. I know, I know. Um, I mean, he's the only guy for whom you would not be a spinster, right?

• 47:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Well, no, actually, I don't want to embarrass him. I just want to talk to him.

• 47:32Speaker 07

  You just, you just wanted, you just want to kind of like imbibe his, his literature into your veins.

• 47:36Liv Albert?

  Pick at his brain. I just, yeah, I do want to ask him questions, so.

• 47:40Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh, absolutely. No, so, um, yeah, what's so interesting about Euripides is that So this is basically this excavation that I'm doing of kind of terms for poet. And I think one of the things I really loved about doing it was that it just gave you a way to kind of take a cross section across ancient literature in a kind of completely different way, but you still, you've got to kind of, by taking that slice out, you've got to kind of see a really interesting perspective on each of the authors. And it's not necessarily anything that I think was particularly surprising, but what I loved about it was that it kind of, it almost for me backed up what I felt about Euripides from, from reading and from seeing his plays.

• 48:24Speaker 07

  I was like, okay, look, now I understand what you are actually doing. So basically, just to give a brief, a brief kind of background, this, this word for poet or for singer, Iidos, um, in the Archaic period, so in like Homer, um, it is, it is generally male, um, like almost exclusively, we can maybe kind of argue about whether there are instances where we might see it as being female, but, um, if it is in the female, it's pretty quickly closed down and it's pretty quickly shown that this is not gonna, this is, this is not gonna work. Um, Euripides is pretty much the only poet who is willing to experiment with the word

• 49:05Speaker 07

  for poet in the female, um, or in the, in the grammatical feminine. Exactly. I mean, it's not a surprise. But I think it tells you, it tells you a lot about, about what he is doing. Um, and he is really interested in kind of imagining, um, women poets kind of at the borders. So he's kind of, he's pushing the limits of where a poet can be. Like obviously we talked about the fact that that word is, is grammatically masculine. So he's, he's already pushing grammar and then he starts pushing conceptual like gender. We're starting to get women into it. Um, what's really interesting though, is that at least in my reading, um, I see every

• 49:49Speaker 07

  kind of instance of those women kind of trying to be singers, trying to be poets. It kind of fails.

• 49:56Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 49:57Speaker 07

  And I think he is really interested, and I don't think that this doesn't make him someone who is interested in exploring women's experiences. But I also think that he is aware of the limits and he is interested in confronting the limits.

• 50:12Liv Albert?

  See, this, this is the argument that I often have with people because there's this idea, and I mean, I do blame Aristophanes for starting it.

• 50:23Speaker 07

  Why not? Yeah.

• 50:24Liv Albert?

  I mean, this idea that because Euripides presents terrible women in sometimes sympathetic lights or just rather like, he presents women that are human, just in the same way that men are human.

• 50:42Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 50:42Liv Albert?

  And often that is taken as if he dislikes them. As if he hated women because he made them look bad. And like, that's, you know, that's so deep in the Thesma for Jesus, I like.

• 50:56Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 50:57Liv Albert?

  Among elsewhere, like this idea that because he gave us complex and slightly fucked up women, that therefore he hates them. When any kind of like base level, like, I don't know, like it, it just, it's so hard to even phrase how that's so silly. Because it's like, no, what he did was recognize the human condition in women. And I also think, to your point, part of that came with recognizing the struggle of women. And he could provide a kind of commentary through his plays while still acknowledging, like, I'm glad he didn't give us this, this world in which women had rights that they didn't have in ancient Greece.

• 51:40Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 51:41Liv Albert?

  I'm glad that he didn't do that for lots of reasons, not least because I think that like, it would have, you know, really impacted like the way we are able to like conceptualize actual ancient Greece. But also that like, it is realistic. I think that it is, it says so much more about him as a person who did appreciate women as a species. Like, I think it says so much more that he was able to put them in a realistic light, no matter how that made them look. And I love that. So like, yeah, it, it kind of fits. It's like, he knows, he could present that and he's still like, but this isn't a new, different world. Like they still will, the limitations still exist.

• 52:17Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 52:18Liv Albert?

  And. It that feels realistic in a way that that's why I like Euripides as women because to me they feel real.

• 52:24Speaker 07

  Absolutely, but isn't that isn't that interesting as a kind of rhetorical stance that presenting complex women is immediately misogyny, right? There's there's no there's no room between kind of like praising a good woman and kind of vilifying a bad woman. If you're interested in women who are complicated, you must be a misogynist.

• 52:51Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 52:52Speaker 07

  Right? I find that like really interesting in terms of kind of like just what are the limits towards being able to to show an interest in women's in women's roles. So like and and that's where, yeah, I think that this the the way he uses that terminology really just, yeah, speaks to like. You know, I like I I talk a lot about um that amazing choral ode in the Medea where the chorus is just like. Now the kind of everything is going to turn around. Finally, we are going to be able to sing our song and like for for like centuries, men have have sung and now finally we will do it. And there is such a kind of deep and tragic irony to that that obviously

• 53:35Speaker 07

  that chorus ends up in a play that becomes stereotypical for its vilification of women. By a man, but I think that he knows that. I think he's talking about that. I think he's talking about the echo chamber of like, I I can't get out of this. Like, I can't show a woman or tell her story without it ending up becoming this tradition. And so what he ends up doing is he just he just goes for it, but as he's going for it, he critiques it.

• 54:03Liv Albert?

  Yes, yeah, no, exactly. And I like and to go back to the what you said about how like, you know, there's nothing in between. The way you talk about the men just misogyny, right? But I think that that is. I think that's this male idea of misogyny, right? It's like, I wonder how women felt about Euripides's women, you know?

• 54:24Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 54:25Liv Albert?

  Cause it feels like this, it feels like this male construct of what misogyny would be. It's this idea that like, cause the men don't want women to be real people, right? Because particularly to Athenian men.

• 54:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 54:37Liv Albert?

  Women were not on a level with them. And I think that this idea that like to them, Euripides putting them on a similar level in terms of just like recognizing humanity. That is like an insult. So they're like, well, you're a misogynist because you present women as like, not these quiet, meek creatures, you know, who do only good things. And it's just so interesting to me that like, that is this phrase that's been, you know, thrown around when it comes to him. Because as a woman, I read any Euripidean woman and I think, how interesting. Like, I don't think she's perfect or somebody I want to emulate. Like, she's interesting. She is a realistic woman.

• 55:17Liv Albert?

  And I think that he so often presented, like not only this kind of realistic, complex, like just human type of woman. But also one of the things that that really stands out to me, so I just want to know any of your thoughts on this play. But his, the Ion and Creusa in the Ion to me is like this whole other level of woman. That I honestly, like I hadn't read the Ion until like a couple of years ago and I didn't even really know what it was about. And then I sat down, I was like, oh my God, like what have I been doing not having read this?

• 55:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 55:52Liv Albert?

  But this idea that not only he presents like a sympathetic woman, but a sympathetic woman who was full on assaulted by a god. And he treats that like the traumatic, terrible, like life-changing experience that it reasonably would be. And that to me says so, so much about how he viewed women in like, in a just empathetic way.

• 56:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, I think that's that's so right. And I mean, it's not for no reason that the iron has been kind of seen by mostly male scholars as one of Euripides' most problematic plays, right? Like, any commentator always starts by being like, well, I don't really know where to place this one. Right? Like, is it really a tragedy? Um, you know, and it's like, dude, we're not like talking about genre here. Like, it doesn't all have to be about genre. Like, Euripides wasn't thinking, what genre am I writing?

• 56:45Liv Albert?

  With the tragedians, it always has to be about genre.

• 56:49Speaker 07

  Exactly, exactly. Um, but like, I think what's really interesting, and I just wanted to kind of maybe like, cycle back a bit, because you mentioned the Thesmaphoria Zeusai, and like, I thought it's kind of you were like, oh, like, what what were the women thinking? How were the women reacting? Which then like made me go into this kind of weird like maze in my mind, because then I was like, well, of course we do get women reacting in Aristophanes' play, so like, by a man. So then I'm like, ah, like, it's just, it's a, it's a maze of mirrors. But then what's really interesting, it made me think about um, how Aristophanes presents the poet in that play. And he is quite, um, I don't know kind of how familiar you are with the Thesmaphoria Zeusai, but like-

• 57:30Liv Albert?

  Been a while, but I have covered it on the show.

• 57:33Speaker 07

  Awesome. Okay, so there there's that poet Agathon, who is is kind of like the the one who kind of enters at the beginning, and he's like very much a kind of like crossdressing, kind of gender, cross-gender boundaries kind of poet.

• 57:46Liv Albert?

  He's very queer and Aristophanes makes it a little weird, but also very clear that he's very queer.

• 57:52Speaker 07

  Absolutely, very, very clear. And he himself is very clear that he is that he is queer and that that he actually takes a lot of poetic force and creative energy from that. Um, so he like has this whole little poetic manifesto where he's basically like, if you kind of inhabit the gender of a woman, then that's how you're going to be able to understand what a woman experiences. And then, you know, you need to be able to inhabit the gender of a man to to understand a man. And I think what I what that demonstrates about Aristophanes is that kind of-

• 58:28Speaker 07

  Reductive gender binary that like you have, if you're a man, you only understand men. And if you're a woman, you only understand women. And I think like Euripides completely breaks that down because he he demonstrates that it is possible to get into complex women characters. But like, it explains, I'm basically kind of trying to cycle back to like, it explains why someone like Aristophanes just like, is like, well, then you must be a misogynist. Because like, I just don't understand how you are getting into their brains.

• 58:56Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:57Speaker 07

  You, if you can't kind of operate within this gender binary that I've set up, right?

• 59:02Liv Albert?

  Yes. No, absolutely. That's, yeah, that's Aristophanes is, he is my nemesis for how he treats Euripides. Um, particularly in that play. I like enjoyed the clouds or the clouds of the frogs very much.

• 59:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, I love the frogs.

• 59:15Liv Albert?

  I read that that is before I had society and I was like, ah, okay, wow. Um. But it also reminds me, and I have been thinking about, I mean, I, I want to make this point purely because I've also been focusing a lot on women. Um, this month for Women's History Month, and I, I want to ensure that I'm not inadvertently excluding trans women because I

• 59:35Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 59:36Liv Albert?

  I'm absolutely am including them in all of this. And I think that that, the way you phrased Aristophanes is, is sort of argument like I was just like this. It's very reductive. It's one or the other. And it reminds me of the, the, the types of cis feminists who refuse to include trans women because it's this idea, it's so reductive. It's this idea that it's like one or the other. And it's like, I, I mean, I'll never understand it. It's, it's, it's nonsense. And so, but it, it does feel, it feels so similar, this like, it, it doesn't feel like a, a realistic understanding of a human being.

• 1:00:12Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Liv Albert?

  Like, at the core, we're all humans.

• 1:00:15Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:00:15Liv Albert?

  Exactly. And, and everything about us as humans and everything about our gender is through experience. It's not through anything inherent and biological. It is through lived experience. And so, I mean, that, that on its face is a, a clear, you know, note that like, we, we are including everyone. Like you,

• 1:00:39Speaker 07

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:39Liv Albert?

  You live as a woman, you've experienced this, like you're a woman, not to mention like all of the shit that goes with the gender dysphoria and that, that comes with being trans. Like, that's, I mean, they, they, they've lived a whole other, you know, a, a, a life of that, that, in that. World of figuring out your gender, that that's a whole other experience. But yeah, it's it. Yeah, it's this idea that comes right back to the this this claim of misogyny. That like if you do not fit into the very explicit gender binary, then you know, you are one thing or the other. Or if you don't present a woman as fitting into that gender binary that is completely constructed.

• 1:01:19Speaker 07

  Yeah. But you know what? Like, I'm gonna go back to kind of your statement about

• 1:01:25Speaker 07

  history always being political. And I think we could also say politics is always historical in that like we can we can tie in like what is happening in the States right now. And with the kind of dictat of like, we are protecting women by all of the kind of horrible things that are happening there. It's like, what women, right? Like, you need to start from the very basic thing of like, what is your understanding of a woman? Because if you are protecting, what you're doing is actually delineating and demarcating and ultimately kind of pushing outside the boundaries. And and it makes me think, again, kind of like just turning back to.

• 1:02:11Speaker 07

  I think turning back to history is such an important way to kind of push back against these kinds of horrible narratives. And you know, this idea that you were saying about kind of that that gender experience, that that that kind of performativity, obviously, that kind of there's been a lot, a huge amount done on that. But like, there was this one. And I don't remember if we talked about this when we were talking about Mythica, but there was this one burial that I came across when I was talking about kind of non-binary gender or gender beyond the binary. And it was in Prague, and I'm gonna say third millennium BCE, but not entirely sure about the date, but like, super early. And it was a burial of a skeleton that

• 1:02:56Speaker 07

  and I think it was DNA analysis was done on the skeleton and it was sexed male. But it had been buried in a way that was conforming to all of the norms of feminine gender burials.

• 1:03:11Speaker 07

  And I think what I love about that is that it is a burial that kind of like. Prior to all of our kind of understanding of the ways in which gender can be enacted and performed, it might have been completely, those, those signals that that person was trying to send about how they identified would have been completely ignored. But because their skeleton had been, or that the body had been laid on their left side and had been buried with these kind of egg shaped containers that are associated with female burials. Now, what you can start to do is you can start to see someone saying to posterity, this is how I want to perform my gender. I am doing something here, you know? And that's, that's thousands of years old.

• 1:03:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, it makes me think of all the myths. There are so many myths that can so easily be read as trans people and people beyond the binary. And it's, yeah. I mean, I think it's really, really important to bring, to talk about these examples that we have because it is so often, you know, presented by the other side as being this new thing and therefore it's

• 1:04:21Speaker 07

  It's justified. Or, yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 1:04:23Liv Albert?

  Exactly. When all evidence points to the opposite. And, and it's just, I mean, it's a, it, it goes back yet to exactly what you just pulled back, but like this idea that history is political and everything, it's all political. Like, and, and not only is history political and, and all of these things, like the, the preservation, the everything to do with how we know anything about the past is political. But on top of that, like, it has such real world, excuse me, it has such a real world current, like ramifications to, to speak on either side of

• 1:05:04Liv Albert?

  that, to, to be ignoring this, this, this obvious historical details and archaeological and all of this, this very clear evidence towards trans people existing forever. Like, it, it is so important to point this out because it affects real people's lives today. And that's the case. I mean, it's, it's, it's very, you know, dire when it comes to trans people today. But it, that's the case. So, so it's the case in everything. Like, it affects real people today. And that's why this idea. That we can ignore politics in history or ignore modern notions of morality in history.

• 1:05:45Liv Albert?

  Like those, those concepts are silly for so many reasons, but they're also dangerous. They also affect people's lives today.

• 1:05:54Speaker 07

  Because exactly, because it allows this kind of laissez faire attitude that that it is somehow external to us. Not our problem, it's it's happening out there, right? The idea that kind of history is is a process that just kind of unrolls. And some kind of often big man leader is the one who's making all the decisions. And I am just kind of like on the treadmill of history. It's like, that's, that's not what's happening. Like every single person acting in every single place is part of that massive jigsaw puzzle that's making up history. I I was someone, and I can't remember who, um, but like I just read this definition and I was just like, this just suddenly makes sense to me. That history is just things happening to people.

• 1:06:38Speaker 07

  And all it is, is things happening to people in the past, right? Like, and and I think to me, that's just like, is that not also what our lives are now? This is all we need to do when we're looking at history is to just understand that this is just the study of how things unravel, how people interact, how things unfold. And and what's so amazing about that is when you really truly understand that, then you realize that we also all have the power to shape narratives going into the future. Because history is not predetermined. All it is, is something that is happening. And so if we collectively, going back to your idea of collective memory, if we remember collectively,

• 1:07:16Speaker 07

  but we also look ahead proactively and collectively, then we can then determine what ends up becoming history.

• 1:07:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, no, and I think, yeah, that that's why, I mean, it's why I, well, I think I should try to think about this more. But I think about this in in relation to my work and the fact that it's just out there in the world. Um, for as long as the technology remains. And that means I am putting this into the historical record in a way that is accessible and and like, you know, right there and and contextualized and real. And it's what so many other people are doing in this realm. And I just want to bring us all together so that it is. It is more likely that our work will reach people, that it will survive, that all of these

• 1:08:05Liv Albert?

  things that determine history now and in the future, you know, it, it, we're better off together, you know, so much of the damage that late-stage capitalism has done to us as a society in the West is separate us from each other and, and break apart the communities that provided a sense of like, safety from the powers that be and, and like, being able to kind of create something like that, I think, it's the thing, I just, it's, it's like I was saying, like, I don't, I don't feel prepared to be the person to do this logistically, let alone in terms of like, having enough hours in the day. But I do

• 1:08:46Liv Albert?

  feel like, I just can't not, because especially now, like, there's, I have a platform, I have the, the biggest platform in the realm of doing this in this kind of public and long-form way. Um, I think it's reasonable to say, if somebody thinks I'm wrong, please share. Um, but I do think I have the biggest platform in this realm, which is like, cool.

• 1:09:06Speaker 07

  Absolutely, which is amazing. Yeah. But you know what, it's so, it's so interesting, because that's, um, like, exactly, I was, I was mentioning this, this talk I was giving last week, and, um, one of the questions was like, you know, um, with, I was, I was kind of giving a preview of Mythica, and they were like, how, how did you, as someone who, you know, you're, you're familiar with the texts, you know, kind of the context, but then like, to bring in archaeology, to bring in science and DNA, how did you kind of have the courage to do that? And I kind of, my, my reflection on it was simply that I felt that someone had to do it in order to tell these stories. And it sounds like that is also your rallying cry. It's like, I may not be the person who is like, hundred

• 1:09:51Speaker 07

  percent best equipped to do this, but it's gotta be done. These narratives need to be told, these histories need to be restored, and, and like, you know, more power to you that you're doing it. Cause like, at the end of the day, this is all about, this is all about the doing, isn't it? Cause that's what's gonna, that's what's gonna make these, these things go down in, in history.

• 1:10:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

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• 1:12:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and even if it's just for now, something that makes us all feel like we're more connected, even on the backend, you know, like that, I think that that means something. And there are so many people doing public scholarship in this way. There are so many and like. I I'm finding, I'm trying to find ways of like recommending kind of everything because I also want to, now that I think about it, like have a place where I can be like, read this book too. Um, thinking of like your work and so many others where it's, it's mostly in traditionally published, which is so great. But it's also like it, the, this collective is going to be easier with things that are like, I can link to a YouTube video. I can link to this podcast, all this, but like, I want.

• 1:12:50Liv Albert?

  The goal is to have it be everything, like every way to learn today, because I also recognize that like people learn in different ways and they take in information in different ways. And I think that's really important to address too, because I think that's, that's part of what we've been talking about this way that like history has been. Presented and determined in this very specific way by these very specific people with very specific brains and very specific ways of learning and. You know, like, that's not, eh, eh, we're all more likely to learn from history and be better prepared to face. All of the absolute fuckery that is going on right now, like we're in a better place to.

• 1:13:32Liv Albert?

  Deal with that and to, you know, work against it in whatever way by all being together and all having this knowledge. That is contextualized, that is put in the, the actual world in which it was created and we can like. Look at why it survives, why this survives versus that, why we know this, why we don't know that, like. All of these things are tools to help us because like the phrase history repeats itself. Is very true. And the other phrase of like, you know, those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. Like, that's so true.

• 1:14:05Speaker 07

  So true.

• 1:14:06Liv Albert?

  Cliche and it's so true.

• 1:14:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:14:09Liv Albert?

  So, yeah, we must embrace the cliche.

• 1:14:11Speaker 07

  Absolutely. I mean, that, that's what I always say. There's a reason that it's a cliche. It's because like it's, it's been proven to be right, but like. Absolutely. But like one other thing that I think is so brilliant about particularly your work and the kind of the morality of the kinds of. Collective like videos and things that you're talking about and, and podcasts and stuff is that. You get a double context because you don't just get the opportunity to contextualize into history and say, let's think about. Exactly what evidence we have where this happened. But this is also happening in real time, contextualizing itself into someone's life. You know, in that someone will be kind of, um, you know, around their house. Um, you know, like, I don't know, doing the dishes or they'll be going for a run.

• 1:14:55Speaker 07

  They are themselves moving forwards in time, a little bit forward again in that jigsaw puzzle. And, and you are a part of that, which is really awesome.

• 1:15:05Liv Albert?

  It is. Yeah. No, it's lovely. It's a funny thing about podcasting, particularly as somebody like I've been doing it for eight years, which means like eight years ago, my episodes were very different from the, the way they are now. And I like that as well. Like people are stubborn and they don't listen to me and they start at the beginning, even though I tell them not to. Um, but it means they get to grow with me so long as they keep listening, you know, and, and see the kind of evolution because

• 1:15:24Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:15:24Liv Albert?

  I was not providing the context eight years ago and I'm so happy that I do now.

• 1:15:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Liv Albert?

  Which is also, I don't like when people don't listen to those or they still listen to the old ones, but, but if they keep listening again, they're going to get the context eventually and it's

• 1:15:36Speaker 07

  That's true, but also, do you know what, Liv? Like, I feel like I, cause I think about this sometimes with kind of like my earlier books and like particularly the novels that I wrote when I was younger and some part of me is kind of like, if I did that now, I would write something completely different, but then I kind of stop myself and I'm like, well, actually that was a snapshot of where I was at that particular time. And there will be people who are where you were and they need to hear where you were at. Um, you know, because like it's you have got here because you've done those eight years. And for many people, um, starting at the beginning and going on that kind of slow journey of experience of, of kind of,

• 1:16:21Speaker 07

  you know, it doesn't, it doesn't just happen. This realization does not happen instantly. You need to learn to contextualize. It's, it's hard work. So also doing that with you, I think is, that's a gift.

• 1:16:32Liv Albert?

  That's very true. No, thank you. That is, yeah, that is true. I would say I wish they would not forget that the episodes came out eight years ago when they, uh, tried to criticize me and I'm like, yeah, well, I was wrong. What do you want me to say? It was eight years ago.

• 1:16:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:16:49Liv Albert?

  But yeah, otherwise I agree.

• 1:16:53Liv Albert?

  Oh, people will comment the silliest things and I'm like, yeah, that was literally eight years ago. I don't know what you want me to say.

• 1:16:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, exactly.

• 1:17:01Liv Albert?

  Podcasts are a very odd thing because they like live in this kind of perpetual space, but also are very timely, particularly like one like mine, which was started like very casually. And just like, I'm going to talk to you guys, you know? But it is nice and I do like myself, I like to see that growth.

• 1:17:16Speaker 07

  For sure.

• 1:17:17Liv Albert?

  Cause yeah, I mean, the eight years ago, me was not an expert and now I like to think I am. So like, there's a lot that comes with it.

• 1:17:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I think also your audience will want to see that as well in that they can see that you're also, you know, it's not just, it's not just your listeners learning, it's, it's you also going on this journey.

• 1:17:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, it's true and it's very, it's a good reminder that everyone is learning. And that like, that's the other thing I think I often find personally grating about certain.

• 1:17:47Liv Albert?

  And I would say, I think it's just primarily the way men respond to things. And I think it's just, it's about how the patriarchy has raised all of us. But men often treat these types of things more like, I mean, I don't know what I'm trying to say, but like essentially I feel comfortable in saying I was wrong or revisiting and recontextualizing and acknowledging these types of things. And I think a lot of that comes from being raised a woman and being raised, you know, to sort of always question yourself in a way that in a lot of general, just like, you know, yeah, just the way we're raised culturally broadly, like men are not.

• 1:18:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:18:28Liv Albert?

  Raised to question themselves in the same way.

• 1:18:30Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's so interesting because you use that word recontextualizing. And, you know, it goes back again to context, like maybe that is what it is to be someone who is kind of other or outside the kind of center is that you are always aware of context. But that also means that what you were able to do is you are also able to kind of recontextualize. So you are also able therefore to revisit narratives and, you know, that in itself is something that is a massive strength.

• 1:19:04Liv Albert?

  Thank you. I do like doing it. I'm very bad at taking compliments, but it, no, it's, it's, I mean, I just love, I love that I get to do this and have conversations like this and things that like stick with me. Like, I'm really never gonna get over the Ayodos of it all, the male poet. And actually going back to that, and I'm gonna, so I'm gonna pull it back to, to your book, because I, there's another thing I wanted to ask you. I've, I've come across this fragment by Corinna. Do you know? Yeah, you would. That I think about all the time. I want to use it for something to do with the collective. I'm just gonna pull it up on my screen so I can remind myself what it is. But it's this

• 1:19:44Liv Albert?

  fragment of this, yeah, this, this ancient poet, a woman, Corinna. I don't know in terms of like the, I don't know the context of like her or what we know or don't know or what we are not sure about.

• 1:19:56Speaker 07

  Major debate. So yeah, not sure about is, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's, that's what I imagine. It tends to be the case. But regardless, there's this fragment that is, I'm just gonna read it. This is the Diane Rayer translation, because it's the one I have on my screen. Terpsichore told me lovely old tales to sing to the white-robed women of Tanagra, and the city delighted greatly in my voice, clear as the swallows. And so I hope it's real, or at least I just hope it's by any woman, because to me, that feels like evidence of women listening to women in this way that we don't otherwise have.

• 1:20:35Speaker 07

  Yeah. But also, which is just wonderful. It brings it right back to our discussion at the beginning about the muses, because of course, you've got Terpsichore, the muse, who is inspiring a woman, who is, you know, speaking to other women.

• 1:20:49Liv Albert?

  Women, exactly. So no, absolutely. I think Corinna is such an interesting one. I mean, I don't think that there is debate about the fact that this was a female poet. I think that that is, is pretty much.

• 1:21:02Speaker 07

  Thankfully, I think that that is agreed upon. Um, the, the debate is more around the date, which just gets in the kind of technicalities that I don't think we need to bother ourselves with.

• 1:21:11Liv Albert?

  It's interesting to the, to the nerds.

• 1:21:14Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:15Liv Albert?

  But yeah.

• 1:21:16Speaker 07

  It's interesting, but I think, I think what it tends to do, it, it tends to do exactly what we were saying about the genre of tragedy earlier. It tends to divert the attention away from what the poetry is actually doing to like, how do we categorize it? What kinds of kind of particular stylistic things can we put so we can like, put this label on it? And now suddenly we understand it. And I feel like actually sitting in not understanding it and allowing it to just be what it is, instead of trying to say, right, no, now it's put this label on. I understand it because it is archaic poetry, or I understand it because it's Hellenistic poetry. It's like, that shouldn't, that shouldn't make a difference. Um, that's a very kind of classificatory way of thinking about it. So.

• 1:22:01Liv Albert?

  I laughed a little only because of your dog, just because I love, she's making little sounds. I'm absolutely obsessed. It's only a compliment. So I'm just explaining why I'm like laughing at inopportune times, but yeah.

• 1:22:11Speaker 07

  No, absolutely. Yeah. If you could hear just some random growling in the background.

• 1:22:14Liv Albert?

  There's just like, it's like that nice kind of growl where she's just like, but like, hi, like I'm, I'm a kier.

• 1:22:20Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. No, she, she wants, she wants her walk soon. Um, but yeah, uh, she, she's not interested in Corinna, are you? Are you sweetheart? You know? I know, honestly. Um, but yeah, no, I mean, Corinna is such an interesting one. Cause like, I mean, thinking again about the kind of the grammar of turns, she has this fragment where she talks about, um, and she gives kind of two different versions. So she gives, um, and, and like, obviously it's so much of her stuff is fragmentary, but she says like the heroes and the heroines. And she uses. Yeah. And she uses the masculine and feminine. And I'm like, I find that really interesting as someone who is a grammar nerd.

• 1:23:00Speaker 07

  I'm like, it's fascinating that she as a female poet is thinking about kind of the competition, the division into gender binaries, how that matches up with grammar. Just like, there's, there's so much that's going on there.

• 1:23:14Liv Albert?

  Yes. Uh.

• 1:23:15Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16Liv Albert?

  And it's so nice to be reminded that these fragments of women do exist.

• 1:23:20Speaker 07

  Absolutely.

• 1:23:21Liv Albert?

  They're so, I feel like it's one of those things, like I was a, other than Sappho, which even, I don't remember having to actually learn much about Sappho in my degree.

• 1:23:31Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:23:31Liv Albert?

  But I'm sure I'd like at least heard of her. Honestly, I I wonder often if I'd heard of her primarily because I did a double major in English Lit at the time and I could see her coming up more obviously in that than the classics, which is sad.

• 1:23:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Liv Albert?

  Um, but like, you know, we don't, we don't learn that there were women doing this and even like undergrads don't go into enough enough depth. I think now there's better, like there are courses in specifically in women and stuff and like I didn't even graduate all that long ago. Like I went to school late, so I didn't even graduate until twenty twelve university and and like I didn't, there was no courses on women.

• 1:24:08Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:24:09Liv Albert?

  And and like, that's wild to me. Like I think about if I'd, if I'd gone to school right out of university, like would have been even worse or right out of high school, rather, it would have been worse like.

• 1:24:18Speaker 07

  Yeah. No, I mean, this is the thing. I was talking to someone the other day and I was saying that like, I mean, I I did um, my undergrad, I graduated in two thousand and nine from Cambridge and.

• 1:24:28Liv Albert?

  I love it. We are the exact same age. That's when I would have graduated if I had actually, I just didn't go until I was older.

• 1:24:33Speaker 07

  Amazing, amazing. So, so yeah, I guess I'm kind of like that that slightly kind of like older model in terms of like what you would have experienced. And we had one course that was talking about kind of tragic women, but it was very much like the male dramatists on women.

• 1:24:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50Speaker 07

  And there was no kind of like discussion of kind of like actual women beyond literary stereotypes. I think gender was mentioned perhaps once in my entire degree. It just was not something that was was kind of really done. And I just find it so interesting how how much has changed. And there is obviously still a like a big way to go in that like, one of the things I think we really need to do is to kind of um, try and address and ideally move beyond the kind of Women's Week mod- model, which is like, you know, oh, I'm gonna do a course on Roman history and like, I'm gonna do one, one week on women. Um, right? Like, I I feel like that's kind of maybe the stage we're at now in

• 1:25:34Speaker 07

  terms of what education is doing. I mean, yeah, better, better than when I was there, but like, I think there's still a way to go to kind of just be like. How about we do people? Right?

• 1:25:46Liv Albert?

  Well, and you can tell it's just still so kind of gendered, even like the, the courses and the, the structure is gendered still towards primarily men. And it's this idea that like men don't want to learn about women, which is, you know, obviously part of like a much larger problem. Like, I don't even mean it, you know, as anything against like individual men at all. Like, it's like this idea that men don't want to learn about women. And I think for the most part, that's untrue.

• 1:26:09Speaker 07

  I agree.

• 1:26:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and it.

• 1:26:11Speaker 07

  In my experience, I think it is. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think most men who would end up in courses like

• 1:26:17Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:26:18Liv Albert?

  that broadly, like, obviously, there is also like an enormous scary subset of people of men who go and like want to learn about Greek and Roman history because they're scary and have the potential for danger. But like, aside from that, I think that if you have, you're coming with this like genuine interest in the ancient world, like you want to know about women, most because, yeah, you want to know what people like. It's this idea or, or it, you know, it's even more nefarious, like the number of times that like I get told not to put like modern morality on the ancient world. And it's always by men or by that, you know, certain type of white woman who is so ingrained into the patriarchy that she like is unsavable, I think, like, you know, this, this idea that because I question

• 1:27:02Liv Albert?

  the, the stories featuring women, typically the types of stories that end up like talking about something that should be objectively traumatic, like as if it's just like any old thing that happened in a story and like people be like, oh, don't put your modern morality. And it's like, no, that's human morality. Actually, the problem is that it was never put on by the people who, you know, did the recording of these stories. But like, this idea that a story where, say, you know, Zeus comes, abducts a woman, we know that she screams, we know that she didn't want to be there, that she wasn't allowed to go home. And then she had his babies and people will be like, oh, my God, you put a modern morality to say that she was raped. And it's like,

• 1:27:41Liv Albert?

  no, I put basic human like knowledge together to make that assumption because it, all of the pieces are there. I don't know if I've said this to you before, but there's this thing sticks with me always that. For a while, I had people coming to me and trying to like, quote unquote, correct me because saying things like the old, like, the word rape originally just meant abduct.

• 1:28:08Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:09Liv Albert?

  And they will make that statement as if they're like, just correcting my idea. And they're like, oh, no, rape just meant to abduct. It didn't inherently mean rape. And I'm like, why do you think that rape meant abduct?

• 1:28:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:28:25Liv Albert?

  It's not that it didn't mean that. It's that it meant that and then the word became just that.

• 1:28:32Speaker 07

  Exactly, exactly. And, and, and no one was talking about it, but it doesn't mean that it wasn't happening within the category of that word. I think that's, that's so interesting that, yeah, I, and it's, it's, um, it's another kind of instance of that kind of classificatory impulse. Or like, if I can give you an etymology for it, then it somehow isn't troubling anymore. You know, like, I, I, I can show it to you in my Latin dictionary and it says, you know, to snatch or seize, and therefore it doesn't mean all of the other things. And but, and not kind of confronting, um, the, the kind of rough edges of the story. Um, so no, absolutely. But also the other thing that I think is, is really interesting about this is that

• 1:29:18Speaker 07

  there is this idea that these stories and these narratives, and I think this is particularly true for literature, right? I'm not talking now about kind of like archaeological artifacts or kind of, um, uh, ruins or that kind of thing.

• 1:29:32Liv Albert?

  The more objective stuff.

• 1:29:34Speaker 07

  Exactly. It's more, it's more concrete. But, but we're talking about, we're talking about literature and texts and tropes and stereotypes. And it's interesting to me that there is this, um. Tendency to assume that they have a kind of independent and fixed identity in the past that can be untouched by the present. In that, like, when you are sitting down and you are reading an ancient text, there is an interface that is happening. There is a a probably like multi-way interaction that is happening. It is not just the ancient is there and it like downloads into you,

• 1:30:16Speaker 07

  but you also interact and respond. And in many ways, it is you reading that ancient text that is creating the ancient text. Because if you weren't reading it, then it wouldn't be here anymore.

• 1:30:28Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:29Speaker 07

  You know, so to imagine that it can exist without its readers, without its interpreters, um, is a kind of a fantasy.

• 1:30:39Liv Albert?

  You know what I'm gonna say to the listeners? We had a bit of gossip about AI that we had to cut out, but AI is terrible and um, just it's terrible and it's it's terrible. I don't even, I'm too too exhausted to go into the details, but people have heard it from me before. Um, but to just like pull it back on women, I suppose, I don't, I don't, I wanna like come up with some like quippy question. Maybe, do you have any, um, we are gonna wrap it up, but like, do you have a favorite Euripides woman?

• 1:31:07Speaker 07

  Ooh.

• 1:31:08Liv Albert?

  I know, having, asking a question of favorites is hard. Maybe not even a favorite, just like a passion.

• 1:31:14Speaker 07

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:16Liv Albert?

  Also, you couldn't say no.

• 1:31:17Speaker 07

  Oh, no, no, I know, I love it. I love it. It's such a good question. Um.

• 1:31:24Speaker 07

  I I'm I'm not gonna say it's my favorite because I I do love so many of them.

• 1:31:28Liv Albert?

  That's why I corrected it, cuz I feel the same when people ask me about favorites.

• 1:31:31Speaker 07

  You did, I'm glad you did.

• 1:31:33Liv Albert?

  But a passion, yeah.

• 1:31:34Speaker 07

  A passion, um, I think I would have to say it would be the women in Trojan Women. Um, and I'm not gonna choose one of them because I feel like they work, they work together in that play. But I saw that, um, I I must have been just a teenager and I saw it in London. My mom took me to see it, to see it, and it was such a good staging. And I think it was really the first time where I kind of saw women's stories being played out. And, you know, through through Euripides, but but being played out and, um. I think it's probably one of the reasons that I love Homer.

• 1:32:17Speaker 07

  One of the reasons why I love women in Homer is because I actually started with Euripides. And you know what? That's really funny because I haven't actually ever really conceptualized it that way. But thinking back about it, I think that that, which like, isn't that such a great way of kind of arguing for what we've been saying all along? Which is that texts don't exist in isolation. They exist through reception in that, like, for me, it was accessing a modern restaging of a classical Athenian drama that was looking back to a myth that ended up being retold in an epic. And that has been my way into this kind of supposedly pristine urtext of Homer, right?

• 1:33:01Speaker 07

  Like, doesn't that just show that these are all open to interpretation?

• 1:33:04Liv Albert?

  Absolutely. And I would add another layer, pulling back to what we've said about everything being political. Is that on top of that, and also actually also relating to context being so important. One of the things that I think I I I talked about the Trojan Women years ago on the show and I want to revisit it now. Not only because I've learned so much more since then, but also because I have this context that I think is often overlooked. But the fact that it was also clearly written as a commentary on the Melian siege.

• 1:33:38Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 1:33:39Liv Albert?

  Like, not only was he writing this sympathetic story of these Trojan women whose entire lives were destroyed by the Greeks in the Homeric quote unquote period. But he was also writing it to directly critique the genocidal actions of the empire in which he lived at that time. And so this idea that, like, we should be looking at any of this context or any of this text, any of the, anything from the ancient world. Outside of politics is so on its face absurd, right?

• 1:34:15Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Liv Albert?

  Euripides wrote reception. It was politically motivated reception of a more ancient time.

• 1:34:23Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:34:23Liv Albert?

  And we're supposed to take it as like, no, I just wrote this play like.

• 1:34:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing is again, that like commentators will will comment on it. Oh, you know, like, look at the time when this came out. And this is obviously kind of a um a pushback against what was happening in Melos. But like, actually, if you think about that as uh an embodied political act, it is both radical and familiar. Because like, as you say, isn't that what everyone is doing? Everything is situated, everything has a context. And and obviously, he's thinking about women particularly because the women of Melos were enslaved, um right? So it's like, there is, it it speaks back to the experience of an actual population

• 1:35:10Speaker 07

  that that, you know, he was he was aware of. Um, so, yeah, no, I think that's, and I think that that's the thing is that sometimes people especially when when they're talking about kind of the the kind of feminist Greek myth retellings that are happening now, and and I get kind of asked about that a fair amount. And they're kind of, some people are like, well, I want my myths to remain myths, you know? And my response is kind of like, they were never myths.

• 1:35:34Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:35:35Speaker 07

  You know?

• 1:35:35Liv Albert?

  Or you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a myth is.

• 1:35:38Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, yes, they were always myths, but they were never myths. In that, in that the point of myth is that it is up for grabs. It is up for retelling. And I guess this is kind of, yeah, why it's why it's so important that we have these conversations. We do this kind of work that they they get retold and and those kind of experiences that, you know, we were talking about getting sieved out of history, that they get restaged because that's that's our job. At the end of the day, that's our job.

• 1:36:10Liv Albert?

  And so I need to reread the Children Women.

• 1:36:13Speaker 07

  Yeah. I feel like I'm always sending you away with homework. Go read more.

• 1:36:18Liv Albert?

  My every, every conversation in the best way is always sending me away with homework, which also I never do because I don't have time to do additional homework, but I always want to.

• 1:36:28Speaker 07

  Don't tell my students that. We always do our homework.

• 1:36:31Liv Albert?

  Well, and I, well, and fortunately, you know, I'm not a student. I did, well, I did do my classics homework. I did when I, when there was a classic.

• 1:36:44Liv Albert?

  But no, it's, and I think, I mean, maybe I'm just going to use this as a little, I'm, I'm trying to drop more and more hints about, something I have also been working on on the side, which is that I have finally finished, I, well, finished a draft that is now with agents of a novel, a thing I've been, I started, one thing I definitely haven't told you, but the listeners have heard before, but the way I got into classics period is when I, I finished high school and I didn't intend to go to university. I was like, I don't need to, I'm too punk and cool. And I just like got a job and was like, I'm an adult now. And I was like 19, you know?

• 1:37:22Liv Albert?

  And I, I started writing a novel for fun and it was about Greek mythology because I'd always liked it. And then I did enough research and I wrote this novel. And then I was like, oh, I, I think I want to like be in publishing. Like this was really fun. I was looking into that. And then I got into university and was like, well, I need to learn some classics. And I was just going to do a minor because I was just like, well, you know, it'll, it'll fit. I, I love this stuff. And, um, and then I took like one class and I was like, oh, this needs to be a double major. Like what am I thinking? All my electives would be classics anyway. Like, why not? And, you know, and then like after university, I, I kind of forgot about the, the novel for a long time. And I went and I worked in publishing and did that whole thing. And then that all blew up. And in my like

• 1:38:07Liv Albert?

  need for some kind of like community, I started this podcast about, again, like the thing I knew I loved at the core and that didn't feel like work. And then of course, like things changed and now it's my entire life. But so it's, it's a very big deal for me to like have finally actually finished a novel that like other people might see eventually. Um, but it's also something where I've been really consciously trying to write something like that is, it's different from the other retellings, not because like I want to be different, but because I just think like, I think there's something, and I haven't read a ton of the retellings, I should say, because they feel like work now and it's kind of a bummer. So I don't unfortunately, but only because like after, you know,

• 1:38:50Liv Albert?

  eight hours every single day or so, if not more of me like looking and reading about Greek mythology for all of these different parts of my job. Like I'm not also then reading a novel that feels like work. But like, but I often find that they don't, even when they're very feminist, they are not addressing what I find to be like, one of the more impactful aspects of like the way women are treated in the mythology, which is like the idea that the gods are out assaulting everyone all of the time. And that's a weird way to say that. That's kind of what I wrote my novel about, but essentially like my novel is like, what if, what if the ancient, the mythological Greeks, some of them recognized that that was bad. Like what would that be like if it was like, no, the gods actually are out like assaulting everyone?

• 1:39:35Liv Albert?

  And like, what if we said that was bad? And it's like, it's generally also like a silly, like romanticy style of, of retelling that I'm just enjoying for fun. But I like this idea of like, I think that often we get caught up in like the more, the more like, um, palatable aspects of feminism. The, the things that are like a strong woman being strong. I'm like, that's great. But what about a woman who also is just like trying to live in the world that she's been given, you know?

• 1:40:05Speaker 07

  Yeah. And, and confronting the limits of the world, right? That's a little bit like going back to what we were saying with Euripides where like you realize that this is how the power structures have been set up. And in the case of the gods, you know, you're confronting a double power structure because you're confronting divine superiority and patriarchy at the same time. And that kind of sense of like, well, this is just what happens. And I mean, it goes back a little bit and to kind of. What I was trying to think about when I was looking at that that vocabulary of the poet, because what I realized was that it has been made to look inevitable that men were authors.

• 1:40:47Speaker 07

  But it was never inevitable. It ended up happening. And I think somehow when you take, when you realize that none of this was inevitable, um, it it sounds a little bit like that's what you're doing. You're saying, well, it didn't have to be this way.

• 1:41:01Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:02Speaker 07

  And and you start opening your eyes to it and you're like, oh, my God, it's everywhere. And yeah, I I think it's it can be really powerful. And as you say, it's a very, a very feminist thing to do to just say, um, how did these things happen? Again, context, context, context, context, right?

• 1:41:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, just like, and like, what what if, like, what if, what if everything is how we see it in Greek mythology, but it's not the way that that the stories have been preserved for us, like it's that that outside that the rest of it, kind of, you know?

• 1:41:35Speaker 07

  Oh, God, well, congrats on your novel. That's so exciting, but also just such a nice, personal thing. As you say, if that for you was like the beginning, it's also just such a milestone to have that under your belt.

• 1:41:46Liv Albert?

  Well, I didn't mean to make this about me, but that's fine. I did. Um, this has been so much fun. I just love talking to you. I love that I can also get content from my job out of it.

• 1:41:59Speaker 07

  It's honestly, it is just brilliant. I feel like, yeah, we are just, as as we we always say this, I mean, how is it two hours later and we've we've been chatting for two hours? I just don't know. I just, I just don't know. Um, but like, it is, it is honestly such a joy. So, so much fun. And yeah, I feel like we've covered so much with like, you know.

• 1:42:20Liv Albert?

  And with zero plan in either of our heads, which I love.

• 1:42:25Speaker 07

  It's great. We're just, we're just in sync and I cannot wait to see you in London. It's gonna be so fun. Yeah.

• 1:42:32Liv Albert?

  Um, is there anything you want to share with the listeners about where to read more, find more or your books coming up? I mean, we've got a whole episode about Mythica, but you definitely mentioned it anyway.

• 1:42:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, of course. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, four weeks today, which is, which is just mad. But yeah, so my book, my next book coming out is, um, it's Mythica in the UK. It's Penelope's Bones in the US. We have a whole episode on it, uh, where we just kind of go, go deep, um, with Liv. But yeah, it's basically kind of the real history behind the women of Homer's myths. So all of the kind of good stuff in terms of how can we let archaeology and latest advances in science and DNA, how can we use that to kind of allow women's real experiences to come to the fore and kind of change the direction of the narrative in that now we're hearing about what their experiences were and using that as a way to understand myths.

• 1:43:25Speaker 07

  Um, so it's, yeah, it's just, it's honestly, it's such a fun ride. It's, I cannot wait to share.

• 1:43:30Liv Albert?

  The stuff that was always there.

• 1:43:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:43:32Liv Albert?

  But wasn't being looked at or talked about or preserved, but it was always there.

• 1:43:37Speaker 07

  It was always there. And what's awesome about it is that when you start looking at it, it makes you actually also then see the myths and the texts and the epics differently. So you start reading the stuff that the men were putting out because you are, you're beginning from women's experiences and you start reading that differently.

• 1:43:53Liv Albert?

  And what, what an idea to begin with women's experiences.

• 1:43:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. Well, I start the, the kind of epigraph to the book is sing to me muse of a woman. And that kind of basically tells you everything. Cause like basically as much as you know, we both love the Odyssey, but it starts asking.

• 1:44:11Liv Albert?

  Man, man, first word is man.

• 1:44:15Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 1:44:17Speaker 07

  So like, let's change, let's change that.

• 1:44:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Hell yeah. No, I love that. I'm so excited for it. Thank you so much. This is, I mean, as always, it's so delightful to chat with you.

• 1:44:27Speaker 07

  Such a pleasure. Thank you so much, Liv.

• 1:44:45Liv Albert?

  Thank you all so much for listening. As always, like I said, you can look forward to another more structured, much more structured episode with Emily coming in just a few weeks to line up with the release of Mythica slash Penelope's Bones. That was a really great conversation. If I'm not misremembering, Michaela was part of it, which was really exciting. And it's, it's gonna be a really great book and really more, just more interesting ways of, of learning about women in the ancient world. And, um, you know,

• 1:45:18Liv Albert?

  ah, um, I also am like so conscious of the fact that I've just talked about women so much. And like, there are so many people that are affected right now by everything that's happening. Um, and so I just wanted to know, like, I'm, I'm not forgetting everyone else.

• 1:45:33Liv Albert?

  It's, it's just, I mean, um, but I will, um, as a Canadian right now, I, um, we have an election. Okay. This is for the Canadians. We have an election coming up and it's really, really important. And I'm not gonna tell you who to vote for, but I am gonna tell you who not to vote for. If you are listening to my show and seriously considering voting for the conservatives in any way, I need you to think about that. And honestly, like, if you listen to my show and you, and you legitimately appreciate the stuff I say, and you take it in, and you are thinking about voting for the conservatives, like,

• 1:46:13Liv Albert?

  honestly, truly email me. Tell me why. And, and let's talk about it because they're so scary. They're so MAGA. They are so, they're so hateful of women. Um, they're so, they're so scary. They're so scary. And also,

• 1:46:33Liv Albert?

  Just morally bankrupt and terrible and I don't think we have like a perfect party in this country even a tiny bit and I won't pretend I'm a fan of the Liberals, but the Conservatives are scary. They're scary. And I will say very happily that I am fortunate and I live in an area where voting NDP is gonna do some good and not gonna help the Conservatives. Um, so I'm happily thrilled to be voting for NDP. Um, but just don't vote for the Conservatives because they're fucking terrifying and they're gonna take away all of our rights. They're going to turn Canada into what is happening in the States right now. And that is if they don't just let us become the fucking 51st state.

• 1:47:15Liv Albert?

  So Canadians, honestly, truly, like I don't, I hope I don't have to say this to you, but Jesus fucking Christ, don't vote Conservative.

• 1:47:23Liv Albert?

  And, uh, thank you all so much for listening. Last Talk About Myths TV is written and produced by me, Liv, Albert, Michaela Pankowicz, it's the Hermes to my Olympians. Uh, the podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast. We're working on trying to do some really good things, but we're trying to do it without any real time or money and, um, things are a little scary. I don't know. Um, I don't want to ask for money right now, but also just so you all know, I have no idea where, what's gonna happen with the podcast at this exact moment. So if you feel like listening ad-free and paying for it, come join us on the Oracle Edition, patreon.com/mystbaby. Um, we got a lot of cool stuff I'm sending out. Um, a bunch of these like cool little holographic stickers that you get at certain

• 1:48:08Liv Albert?

  tiers. Um, I got thank you notes. I've got custom stuff made. There's gonna be more coming. We've been uploading episodes like crazy so that you can have access to all of that ad-free and support the show. And yeah, but stay tuned, um, and learn more about the Memory Collective at collectivemem.com. Sign up for the newsletter. I promise it's still hopefully gonna happen. I just have to find the time and energy and drive and mythstv.com/newsletter?

• 1:48:38Liv Albert?

  Thank you all. I promise I still love this so much and I'm going to keep doing it in whatever ways that I can physically do it. Um, but you know. I don't know. Everything's wild right now. Uh, hopefully back with a more upbeat episode soon. I am Liv and I, I love this shit. I, I really do. You know, to tear it from my cold, dead hands.

• 1:49:06Liv Albert?

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