AGreatDivorce

ACOUP - Armor in Order, Part II

In part II of the “Armor in Order” pair of articles, Bret applies his “order of armor” to examples from film, TV, and video games. How well do some examples hold up from Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Dragon Age? This will be an image heavy one, just as a warning.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2019/05/03/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoKVPgpduXQ
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - Armor in Order, Part I

This time, I wanted to step back and cover a bit of a disparate set of different articles from early in the ACOUP run focusing around one topic: Armor! Here, we start with the first of the two-part series with which Bret kicked the blog off, a pair of articles covering how armor works. In this post, Bret goes over the order of armor: the way armor is prioritized to parts of the body and why.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2019/05/03/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZmQ6fWEBM4
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - So You Want to Go to Grad School (in the Academic Humanities)?

Another one-off, this time covering the prospects of attending a graduate program in the academic humanities. What is the process students go through to become a professor? What is the work itself and what does it look like as a student? This is a more personal, raw sort of post, covering the state of graduate learning both as advice for those considering entering it and for those curious about the process in general.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/10/01/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmnENcebQ-A
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - How Your History Gets Made

Another one-off, this time covering something of a companion piece to the article I started this whole narration project with: The Practical Case for Why We Need the Humanities. This time, Bret talks specifically about how history, as a discipline, works. He outlines the way history delivers knowledge from academics to public educators and, then, to the public itself and why that is beneficial. 
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2020/07/09/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrAKYb8VA40
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - My Country Isn’t a Nation

As something of a coda to the Queen’s Latin series, I wanted to cover Bret’s one-off discussing the identity of the United States. That is, what sort of polity is it? What is a “nation” and what is the United States in relation to that concept? This was posted mid-way through the Queen’s Latin series and, I think, is an informative supplement to it.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMJcY5sN2-Q
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part V: Saving and Losing an Empire

Here at the end of his “Queen’s Latin” series, Bret takes a look at the underlying question of this discussion of Roman diversity: what role did diversity play in Rome’s fall? Unlike the pop-culture, folk-history concept of Rome as “overwhelmed by barbarians from within,” the real history of Rome shows rather the opposite. That a diminished ability to tolerate and incorporate diversity both failed to prevent collapse and even weakened the empire for that fall. Closing out the series, Bret covers how Rome’s systems of tolerance and incorporation gave way to systems of fragmentation and, ultimately, collapse.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/07/30/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frih4JQ5SmQ
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part IV: The Color of Purple

Having covered ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious, and legal distinctions in the Roman world, Bret moves to a distinction that was not quite so important then but is today: what color were the Romans have? The answer is that they covered nearly the full range of skin tones... and provided us plenty of examples in their visual record! Just a warning: this post is image heavy. I will not be describing the images in deep detail as I feel that would bloat the runtime and Bret does a good job highlighting the important qualities in his own writing. Also, just a heads up, some of the imagery does depict nudity, both male and female, but nothing explicitly sexual. 
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/07/23/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK6qMxRLP1Q
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part III: Bigotry and Diversity at Rome

In the third part of his “Queen’s Latin” series, Bret takes a look at the makeup of the Roman senate and how Rome’s diversity was reflected in it, as well as how Roman diversity was reflect in its literary culture... along with how that same diversity was complained about (in pretty graphic terms) by other Romans. Note: some of the sources Bret pulls from when discussing Roman bigotry (ahem, Marital) use some pretty foul and bigoted language. It’s brief, but be aware it’s there.
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/07/16/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVb-JtkP7lY
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part II: Citizens and Allies

With Rome’s origins established, Bret now turns to look at citizenship. What did citizenship mean and how was it defined in the ancient world? How did Rome differ from this model, and what did those differences mean for Rome’s impacts on the world stage?
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/06/25/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8vR3uHi3qE
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!

ACOUP - The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part I: Beginnings and Legends

This time, I’m tackling Bret’s “The Queen’s Latin” series. This is a series that examines who the Romans were in terms of their identity: what did “Roman” mean to them, how did they identify themselves as “Romans,” what did the Romans themselves look like, and how did those concepts change over time? Bret starts off with a look at the origin of Rome, both as told in Roman myth (how did they talk about themselves) and as revealed through archaeology (what can we know about their historical origin). 
The text for this recording is from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, the blog of history professor, Bret Devereaux, whose work you should absolutely support with your eyes, your clicks, and, if you are able, your bucks.
Anyone wishing to engage with Bret, check out these links:
Original post for this recording - https://acoup.blog/2021/06/11/collect...
Dr. Devereaux’s blog, A Collection of UnmitigatedPedantry - https://acoup.blog
Dr. Devereaux’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux
Dr. Devereaux’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
Episode on  Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZlu5kvdrF4
 
And if you wish to support me, please like, share, and subscribe!