Ancient Office Hours

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 [email protected] and we can provide one.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cricket Leigh, a therapist and accomplished voice-over artist (the voice of Mai on Avatar the Last Airbender), joins Lexie to discuss her path into performance, from growing up in Kalamazoo and doing local theater and musicals to studying intense classical works at NYU, booking Mai on Avatar: The Last Airbender and the show’s enduring appeal through big themes and values, and leaving LA to practice therapy for 10 years, curating Comic-Con panels on anime and mental health, and now returning to creative work and new voiceover roles. 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 7, 2025.

Check out Cricket’s website: https://cricketleigh.com/

Check out her YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@cricketleightalks

Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cricketleightalks/?hl=en-gb

Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday.

Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at [email protected] and we can provide one.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a Professor of Classics at Princeton (at the time of this recording), joins Lexie to discuss how growing up unhoused in New York City led him to reading in a shelter library and discovering Greece and Rome, the efforts to revise curricula toward race, gender, and sexuality studies, the limits of relying on one faculty member for such courses, and the importance of hiring, and outlines two reception projects—Classicism and Other Phobias and a book on Dominican classical reception and racialization. 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 June 26, 2025.

Learn more about Dr. Padilla Peralta: https://classics.princeton.edu/people/dan-el-padilla-peralta

Follow him on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/platanoclassics.bsky.social

Read the NYT article referenced in the episode: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/magazine/classics-greece-rome-whiteness.html

Read about his upcoming move to Arizona State University: https://paw.princeton.edu/article/activist-scholar-dan-el-padilla-peralta-06-leaving-princeton

Check out his book “Undocumented”: https://www.prhspeakers.com/speaker/dan-el-padilla-peralta

Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday.

Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at [email protected] and we can provide one.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gigi Berardi, a Western Washington University environmental science professor and award-winning writer who has taught in Italy for 15 years, talks about her historical fiction novel Bianca’s Cure. Gigi explains choosing the Medici because their patronage shaped Florence and because her book centers on the “greatest mystery of the Renaissance”: the near-simultaneous deaths of Grand Duke Francesco de’ Medici and his wife Bianca Cappello, debated as arsenic poisoning, malaria, or murder by his brother Ferdinando. She describes building an accurate historical “skeleton” from primary sources and extensive fact-checking with Florence researchers while inventing plausible internal monologue using tonal exercises. The conversation covers Bianca’s Venetian aristocratic background, Renaissance medicine and Artemisia/antimalarial history, women’s roles in alchemy, Florence as a character, and Gigi’s view of success as visibility and reader engagement.

Originally recorded February 23, 2026.

Check out Gigi’s website: https://gigiberardi.com/

Check out Bicana’s Cure: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Biancas-Cure/Gigi-Berardi/9798896360704

Follow Gigi on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580352734240

Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday.

Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at [email protected] and we can provide one.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Kate Cook, a Lecturer in Greek Culture at King’s College London, joins Lexie to discuss falling in love with tragedy after reading Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Kassandra’s scene, connecting hostility toward prominent or “masculinized” women in modern games to ancient tragic narratives about women, and critiquing the “historical accuracy” discourse in gaming which includes mods that remove women. 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 June 12, 2025.

Learn more about Dr. Cook: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/kate-cook

Follow her on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/katexe.bsky.social

Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday.

Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at [email protected] and we can provide one.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.