Episodios

  • Discussing The Oresteia – Part III: Eumenides – By Aeschylus With Evan
    Mar 30 2026

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    In this episode of Canonball, Evan and I discuss the play "Eumenides," which is the third part of Aeschylus' only extant trilogy "Oresteia," which premiered in 458 BC.

    The cover art for this episode is from a painting titled Pallas Athena that Rembrandt completed in 1657.

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    1 h y 40 m
  • How To Actually Learn Any Language
    Mar 6 2026

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    This is a summary of what I think is the best approach to learning a language, based on my experience mastering a foreign language as an adult.

    Here you can download the software that I mentioned, Anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/

    Here is a page of links to word-frequency lists for German; similar lists can be found online for many other languages:

    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/German

    The cover art is from the painting "Before the Audience," which Jean-Leon Gerome completed in 1881.

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    18 m
  • Discussing "The Life Of Saint Louis" By Jean De Joinville
    Feb 28 2026

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    In this episode of Canonball we discuss "The Life Of Saint Louis," which Jean de Joinville completed in 1309.

    The cover art for this episode is a painting titled Louis IX that Émile Signol completed in 1844.

    The other painting I mentioned is Saint Louis Mediating Between the King of England and His Barons which Georges Rouget completed in 1820 and can be found here.

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    40 m
  • Discussing The Fragments Of Heraclitus
    Feb 22 2026

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    In this episode of Canonball we discuss the fragments of Heraclitus, who lived in the sixth and fifth centuries BC.

    The cover art for this episode is The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, which JMW Turner completed in 1834 or 1835.

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    38 m
  • Discussing "The Libation Bearers" By Aeschylus With Evan
    Feb 15 2026

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    In this video, Evan and I discuss "The Libation Bearers," which is the second play in the Aeschylus' trilogy Oresteia.

    The cover art for this episode is from Orestes Pursued by the Furies, which William-Adolphe Bouguereau completed in 1862.


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    1 h y 15 m
  • Discussing "The Civilization Of The Renaissance In Italy" By Jacob Burckhardt
    Feb 8 2026

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    In this episode of Canonball we discuss "The Civilization Of The Renaissance In Italy," which was written by Jacob Burckhardt and published in 1860.

    Get a copy of my edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at my website:

    VollrathPublishing.com

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    47 m
  • Colleges Are Abandoning the Classics — Down 70% Since 2008
    Jan 31 2026

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    The data below are in the format indicated in the first line: The first word given is the term that I searched on opensyllabus.org, followed by its frequency in 2008, its frequency in 2024, and the percent change. So, for example, the first term in the list, that of the name of Diderot, declined by 90 percent in 16 years.

    Term 2008 frequency 2024 frequency percent change
    Diderot 0.027714 0.0025916 -90.64876957
    Thucydides 0.10137 0.011824 -88.33579955
    Petrarch 0.060532 0.0074508 -87.69113857
    Aristophanes 0.090434 0.0115 -87.2835438
    Tacitus 0.039382 0.0053452 -86.42730181
    Boccaccio 0.040112 0.0055071 -86.27069206
    Erasmus 0.026255 0.0037254 -85.81070272
    Francis Bacon 0.033548 0.0051832 -84.54989865
    Virgil 0.061991 0.010042 -83.80087432
    Victor Hugo 0.009481 0.0016197 -82.91635903
    Xenophon 0.035736 0.006317 -82.32314753
    Montesquieu 0.040841 0.0076128 -81.35990794
    Dostoevsky 0.060532 0.011338 -81.26941122
    Voltaire 0.080953 0.015388 -80.99143948
    John Dryden 0.012041 0.0023654 -80.3554522
    Horace 0.078036 0.015388 -80.280896
    Hesiod 0.040112 0.0084227 -79.00204428
    Thomas Hobbes 0.080953 0.017331 -78.59128136
    Aeschylus 0.058344 0.012634 -78.34567393
    Tolstoy 0.080953 0.018303 -77.39058466
    Homer 0.18451 0.042923 -76.73676224
    Seneca 0.081682 0.019923 -75.60906932
    Dante 0.11231 0.028669 -74.47333274
    Moliere 0.043758 0.011338 -74.08930938
    Euripedes 0.081682 0.021381 -73.82409833
    Samuel Johnson 0.032089 0.0084227 -73.75206457
    Goethe 0.030631 0.0082607 -73.03156933
    Ovid 0.061991 0.017169 -72.30404414
    Sophocles 0.14149 0.041303 -70.80853771
    Edmund Burke 0.034277 0.010366 -69.75814686
    Friedrich Nietzsche 0.18816 0.057339 -69.52646684
    John Locke 0.074593 0.022806 -69.42608556
    Edmund Spenser 0.010279 0.0031979 -68.88899698
    Chaucer 0.11742 0.037092 -68.41083291
    David Hume 0.057615 0.018303 -68.23223119
    Cicero 0.064179 0.020409 -68.19987846
    Cervantes 0.053239 0.017007 -68.05537294
    Christopher Marlowe 0.014684 0.0050494 -65.61291201
    Herodotus 0.043029 0.014902 -65.36754282
    John Milton 0.044488 0.01555 -65.04675418
    Charles Dickens 0.032089 0.011662 -63.65732806
    Kant 0.30631 0.11176 -63.51408704
    Jonathan Swift 0.048134 0.018465 -61.63834296
    Plato 0.46019 0.17671 -61.60064321
    Shakespeare 0.48863 0.19226 -60.65325502
    Marcus Aurelius 0.013127 0.0055071 -58.04753561
    Aristotle 0.39966 0.17655 -55.82495121
    Schiller 0.098456 0.046163 -53.11306573
    Descartes 0.199983 0.096699 -51.64638994
    John Donne 0.026431 0.012876 -51.28447656
    John Keats 0.037195 0.018465 -50.35623068
    Mary Shelley 0.039382 0.019761 -49.82225382
    Epictetus 0.024067 0.017817 -25.9691694
    Edgar Allan Poe 0.02555 0.028276 10.66927593
    Average decline: -69.83809964

    The cover art for this episode is Imaginary View of the Grand Galarie in the Louvre in Ruins, which Hubert Robert completed in 1796.

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    8 m
  • Discussing "The Revolt Of The Masses" By Jose Ortega y Gasset
    Jan 25 2026

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    In this episode of Canonball we discuss "The Revolt Of The Masses" which Jose Ortega y Gasset first published as a series of essays in 1929 before it was published as a book in 1930.

    Get a copy of my edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at my website:

    VollrathPublishing.com

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    36 m