Alizah Holstein writes about the complex echelons of academia in 'My Roman History'

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4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

After a high school English teacher introduced Alizah Holstein to Dante's Divine Comedy, the Italian capital Rome became the first place she wanted to go. Rome's rich history was the one thing she wanted to study most. As an adult, she did spend time researching and exploring in Rome, believing that becoming a Roman historian was her destiny. But while working on her Ph.D. back in the U.S., Holstein came face to face with gender biases in academia – and she pivoted to another, wholly different path. In today's episode, Holstein speaks with NPR's Robin Young about her memoir My Roman History, the gender biases she encountered, and how Rome has continued to be a city that inspires wonder in her.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I don't know if you've ever undertaken a big
0:08.1	academic research project, but if you haven't, it can be an intense experience. I mean,
0:15.0	best case scenario, it ends up consuming so much of your life that you can't stop thinking about it.
0:20.4	And I say that's the best
0:21.7	case scenario because that means you've fallen into some sort of love with your subject. That's the
0:27.3	impression I got from today's interview. It's with Elisa Holstein, author of the book My Roman History.
0:32.9	It's a memoir of her academic journey and how certain things worked out, but also how certain things
0:38.3	didn't. And in this interview with here now's Robin Young, Holstein talks about how she
0:42.0	ended up rejecting academia altogether. And what that says about women's positions in the ivory
0:48.7	tower. That's ahead. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:55.1	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
0:59.6	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:01.7	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
1:05.4	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:09.0	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:15.1	I met author Elisa Holstein on a panel at the Boston Book Festival about following your bliss.
1:21.4	Most of the authors had done that beyond their wildest dreams.
1:25.0	But at first glance, Alisa didn't seem to fit the bill. Oh, she seemed
1:29.6	destined to be a scholar of ancient Roman history. As a teen, she fell in love with Rome through Dante's
1:36.1	divine comedy, his tale written in the 1300s of traveling through the afterlife. Alisa traveled
1:42.5	to Rome, climbing over ancient ruins, scouring archives.
1:46.8	And then, to everyone's shock, she didn't achieve what she thought was her bliss. And I wasn't
	...

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