Ancient Office Hours

Returning guest, Dr. David Schenker, a professor of classics at Mizzou, returns for a 6-year catch up! At the time of this recording, he had just taught his final formal class after 35 years at the University of Missouri. Luckily, he will continue working through delivering occasional lectures, committee work, and Greek reading. In today’s episode, he discusses shifting from “Classical Tradition” to “Classical Reception,” and updates us on his cross-listed course, “Black Dionysus: Greek Tragedy in Africa and the African Diaspora.” The conversation also covers curriculum debates, Emily Wilson’s campus visit to Mizzou, reactions to Christopher Nolan’s new Odyssey trailer, AI in teaching, and department restructuring. Lastly, he provided insight into the “Schenkerthon” retirement event held in honour of his retirement and his hopes for his departmental legacy and other retirement plans. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded May 7, 2026.Learn more about Dr. Schenker: https://car.missouri.edu/people/schenker Listen to his first AOH episode: https://www.ozymandiasproject.com/podcast/episode/37933cbe/episode-2-dr-david-schenker Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

Dr. Salima Ikram, a Distinguished Professor and the Amelia Peabody Chair in Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, joins Lexie to discuss her interests in preservation and mummification, revitalizing an Egyptian Museum animal mummy room, shifting her toward funerary and animal-mummy research while remaining “food obsessed,” and the practical logistics of temple offerings, disease and hygiene, beer and water, and teases a short introductory food book currently in progress. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded August 19, 2025. Learn more about Dr. Ikram: https://www.aucegypt.edu/fac/salima-ikram Follow her public Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SlIkram Find her publications on Academia: https://aucegypt.academia.edu/SalimaIkram Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

Dr. Jenn Finn, an Associate Professor and Chair of the Classical Studies Department at Loyola University Chicago, joins Lexie to discuss how coursework in Achaemenid Persian art and a Pompeii dig led her to learn cuneiform and frame Alexander the Great in an ancient Near Eastern context, Alexander as a symbolic strategist, the barrier of source limits, and her experience consulting for the Netflix documentary Alexander: The Making of a God. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded August 14, 2025. Learn more about Dr. Finn: https://www.luc.edu/classicalstudies/facultydirectory/profiles/finn.shtml Find her publications on Academia: https://luc.academia.edu/JennFinn Find the episode of Legacies of Ancient Persia with Dr. David Potter: https://pourdavoud.ucla.edu/media/podcast/ Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

Dr. Petra Creamer, an Assyriologist, archaeologist, and professor of the Ancient Near East at Emory University, joins Lexie to discuss focusing on the Assyrian Empire to understand how non-elites experienced state power, Assyrian deportation as a labor and control strategy that often moved families and aimed to resettle people as productive “Assyrians,” and conducting fieldwork at Katrash near Erbil, an unexpected rural Neo-Assyrian administrative/storage center likely tied to agricultural extraction and imperial bureaucracy. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded July 31, 2025. Learn more about Dr. Creamer: https://mesas.emory.edu/people/biographies/Creamer-Petra.htmlFollow her on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/petramcreamer.bsky.social Follow her research on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Petra-CreamerFind her publications on Academia: https://emory.academia.edu/PetraCreamerCustom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

Dr. Jeffrey Newman, an Egyptologist and a research associate at UCLA's Pourdavoud Institute, joins Lexie to discuss his dissertation, which examines ritual performance and the origins of Egyptian bureaucracy and state formation, Predynastic and Early Dynastic chronologies, addresses First Dynasty human sacrifice, and his cultural heritage photography & photogrammetry experiences. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded July 22, 2025. Learn more about Dr. Newman: https://pourdavoud.ucla.edu/people/jeffrey-newman/  Follow his work on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeffrey-Newman-5Read his dissertation: https://www.proquest.com/docview/3180856129 Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

Dr. Curtis Dozier, an associate professor of Classics at Vassar College, joins Lexie to discuss entering classics through Latin in public high school, founding Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics to document how white nationalist and antisemitic movements use Greco-Roman antiquity to legitimize politics, his new book The White Pedestal, and how “historical accuracy” rhetoric often masks racism and misogyny. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded July 14, 2025. Learn more about Dr. Dozier: https://www.vassar.edu/faculty/cudozier Follow him on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/curtisdozier.bsky.socialCheck out his publications on Academia: https://vassar.academia.edu/CurtisDozier Check out his latest book “The White Pedestal”: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300272734/the-white-pedestal/Check out Pharos: https://pharos.vassarspaces.net/ Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

Jonathan Todd Ross, a voice actor and writer (the voice of Marik Ishtar & Yami Marik in the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series), joins Lexie to discuss getting into acting and studying at NYU, stumbling into voice work via an urgent Ultraman audition that led to Yu-Gi-Oh!, and ultimately audiobooks, and why the original Yu-Gi-Oh! dub endures—universal themes, mythic battles, and inner duality. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded July 8, 2025. Learn more about Jonathan: https://www.jonathantoddross.com/ Check out his IMDb page: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1475002/ Follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathantoddross Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jtoddross Follow him on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jonathanross8102 Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

Dr. Roel Konijnendijk, the Darby Fellow in Ancient History at Lincoln College, at the University of Oxford, joins Lexie to examine psychological warfare and imperial brutality in antiquity, citing Persian punishment of Miletus and Athens and Athenian reprisals, explore Greek ambivalence about war’s glory and horror, myth-bust Sparta as less uniquely militarist than popularly imagined, and look at reenactment as experiential rather than evidentiary. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week’s exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded July 8, 2025. Learn more about Dr. Konijnendijk: https://lincoln.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-roel-konijnendijk/ Follow him on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/roelkonijn.bsky.social Follow him on Twitter: https://x.com/Roelkonijn Get updates on his Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions: https://www.askhistorians.com/amas  Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. 

In this very special podcast episode, Lexie reconnects with Andrea Parkins, her influential history teacher who ignited her passion for history back in sixth grade. They reminisce about the memorable and engaging methods Andrea used to teach ancient history, such as immersive units on Greece and Egypt, complete with field trips, class competitions, and creative storytelling. Andrea shares her unconventional path to becoming a teacher, her experiences teaching various grades, and her thoughts on making education dynamic and exciting. The conversation offers a heartwarming trip down memory lane, highlighting the lasting impact a passionate teacher can have on their students. Originally recorded January 5, 2026. Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Lexie Henning. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one.