Shadi Bartsch on the Classics and China
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2021
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A self-professed nerd, the young Shadi Bartsch could be found awake late at night, reading Latin under the covers of her bed by flashlight. Now a professor of Classics at the University of Chicago, Dr. Bartsch is one of the best-known classicists in America and recently published her own translation of Virgil's Aeneid. Widely regarded for her writing on Seneca, Lucan, and Persius, her next book focuses on Chinese interpretations of classic literature and their influence on political thought in China.
Shadi joined Tyler to discuss reading the classics as someone who is half-Persian, the difference between Homer and Virgil's underworlds, the reasons so many women are redefining Virgil's Aeneid, the best way to learn Latin, why you must be in a room with a native speaker to learn Mandarin, the question of Seneca's hypocrisy, what it means to "wave the wand of Hermes", why Lucan begins his epic The Civil War with "fake news", the line from Henry Purcell's aria that moves her to tears, her biggest takeaway from being the daughter of an accomplished UN economist, the ancient text she's most hopeful that new technology will help us discover, the appeal of Strauss to some contemporary Chinese intellectuals, the reasons some consider the history of Athens a better allegory for America than that of Rome, the Thucydides Trap, the magical "presentness" of ancient history she's found in Italy and Jerusalem, her forthcoming book Plato Goes to China, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded March 16th, 2022
Other ways to connect
- Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
- Follow Tyler on Twitter
- Follow Shadi on Twitter
- Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
- Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
| 0:08.4 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. |
| 0:12.6 | Learn more at mercatis.org. |
| 0:15.2 | And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit |
| 0:20.4 | ConversationsWithT Tyler.com. |
| 0:26.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations With Tyler. |
| 0:29.6 | Today my guest is Shady Barch, who is a professor of classics at the University of Chicago. |
| 0:35.6 | She has written very well-known books on Seneca, on Luchen, on Perseus, and her latest work |
| 0:41.4 | is a wonderful translation of Virgil's The A&ID, and she has another book coming out |
| 0:47.0 | on political thought about the classics in China. |
| 0:50.9 | Shady, welcome. |
| 0:51.9 | Thank you so much Tyler. |
| 0:53.5 | I'm excited to be here. |
| 0:55.0 | Now when I read Virgil, I see so many visual representations of history, right? |
| 1:00.6 | There's the temple of Juno, there's Palace as Bell, the Ivory Gates of the Underworld, |
| 1:04.4 | the Dadalist's Relief, the Shields, in the A&ID, how do visual representations differ |
| 1:10.1 | from literary representations of history? |
| 1:12.7 | That's an excellent question, but before I try to answer it, I'll just quickly say that |
| 1:17.6 | the usual pronunciation is an A&ID. |
| 1:19.7 | Okay, sure. |
| 1:20.7 | Rather than A&ID. |
| 1:21.7 | Okay, so one of the interesting things about all the visual representations of history |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Conversations with Tyler, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Conversations with Tyler and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.