Pasts Imperfect (12.14.23)
The Classicist's Gift Guide and an Epic Eidolon Takeover
This week, classicist and pun gold medalist Tori Lee presents her annual Classicist’s Gift Guide 2023. Then, the editors of Eidolon take over the newsletter with updates, reading suggestions, and insights galore. Finally, there are new journal issues that will give you some ancient world reading into the new year—although we’d also suggest just reading some fun fiction over the break.
The 2023 Classicist’s Gift Guide by Tori Lee
(Images & captions by Stephanie Wong)
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: time for the annual Classicist’s Gift Guide 2023! (←follow this link for all the ancient world gifts you can handle).
It’s always a joy to save links throughout the year for the gift guide, and there are always a few winners that manage to slip through the cracks. Here are a few more bonus gifts that didn’t make the original cut:
For the classicist who loves mood lighting, try this Discobolux lamp. The discus itself is the light!
If you buy the lamp, this is how you should display it.
For the classicist obsessed with Squishmallows and Jellycat: I present to you: Tuppi, a plush cuneiform tablet from the Chicago ISAC store. They just restocked after being sold out for months, but don’t worry—I already have one.
Tuppi’s cuter than this hunk of clay. But this image reminds me of how biscuit-like cuneiform tablets are. My inner Paul Hollywood activates. For the classicist who enjoys a hot beverage, a gladiator graffito mug, based on writing from the House of the Labyrinth in Pompeii.
For the classicist who’s redecorating, why not use this ancient bust wallpaper for your entire house?
And, finally, a recurring donation to the Sportula (or Sportula Europe) in honor of your favorite classicist, to support the next generation of scholars.
Catching up with the Editors of Eidolon by Donna Zuckerberg, Sarah Scullin, Tori Lee, and Yung In Chae
DONNA:
Writing-wise, I haven’t published much (anything?) since Eidolon ended. But that’s about to change! I’ve been working on a memoir about classics, divorce, and gender, which I sold to Simon & Schuster at the end of August. And I just launched a brand-new newsletter, Myth Takes, where I write about myth, parenting, video games, and other obsessions. Perfect for fans of that one dolphin article I wrote for Eidolon (IYKYK).
Reading-wise, probably for the first time since I was in high school 20 years ago, most of my reading this past year has been books. As I made the shift to thinking of myself primarily as an author instead of an academic, I wanted to stay on top of the releases everyone in the publishing world was talking about.
Of the 90 books I read – I’m hoping to get to 100 by December 31, send me your recommendations for novellas, graphic memoirs/novels, and poetry collections!! – there were a handful I just couldn’t shut up about to my friends and family. I don’t think they found it any more interesting than when I used to talk about Classics stuff, but why would I let that stop me?
Half of these are pretty basic-bitch choices showing up on all the “best of the year” lists. Turns out, my taste isn’t exactly unique. But I’m hoping the audience of this newsletter was so overloaded with catching up on scholarship and grading that you didn’t have time to read for fun!
1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin) – I ignored my family and my rapidly flooding basement to devour this lovely book about friendship and video games on New Year’s Day and I’ve been recommending it to everyone ever since
2. Body Work (Melissa Febos) – a phenomenal craft book about writing, and contains what I consider the best goddamn footnote of all time (p. 35 n. 2, I will share it with anyone who asks nicely, it lives rent-free in my brain)
3. Chain-Gang All-Stars (Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah) – OH MY GOD this book. My #1 of the year, easily. It’s set in a near-future America where the most popular and highly funded form of entertainment is death row inmates fighting to the death as gladiators. It’s got gripping sports writing, thoughtful science fiction, sweet queer romance, and a searing critique of the carceral system. What more could you want?
4. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Jesse Q. Sutanto) – this book is just a warm hug, it’s absolutely lovely, it made me a better person, 12/10 stars
5. Yellowface (R. F. Kuang) – this book terrified me to my core. Every time I meet someone in publishing, I’m now tempted to ask for proof in triplicate that they’re in therapy. Bonkers from start to finish.
6. Boys Weekend (Mattie Lubchansky) – no description of this book can do it justice. It’s a fantastical, heartwarming, terrifying graphic novel about a trans woman attempting to survive a bachelor party in a near-future late-capitalist hellscape. Actually, as I describe it, I think I loved it for similar reasons to Chain-Gang All-Stars, although superficially they’re… pretty different.
7. This American Ex-Wife (Lyz Lenz) – I got to read this pre-publication and it absolutely wrecked me. Lyz really gets that divorce is great, actually! Although if I were her, I would not have divorced her husband, I would have murdered him. Available for pre-order!
8. Bright Young Women (Jessica Knoll) – a feminist retelling of Ted Bundy that never uses his name and instead focuses on the women he killed and the women who loved them. Critiques both true crime as a genre and how female socialization that prioritizes the comfort of men is literally lethal. Absolutely gutted me.
SARAH:
I've read very little that is actually share-worthy since the journal shuttered in 2020, as my life has mirrored this Reductress title: Traumatic Experience Really Taking Its Sweet Time Turning Into Art. Indeed, I've spent the past three years going to doctors, getting told I was fine, getting MRIs, getting told I was not fine, and plugging away at a tragicomic memoir about my "diagnostic odyssey" in which I, an erstwhile ancient medicine scholar, discover that I'm essentially sick with one of Hippocrates' "Diseases of Women." Convenient!
Essential plug for Babel by RF Kuang (a must-read for classicists and Donna Tartt fans alike). Favorite quote: "Translation means doing violence upon the original, it means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So, where does that leave us? How can we conclude except by acknowledging that an act of translation is always an act of betrayal?”
Speaking of things every classicist should know about: the band The Mountain Goats continues 30-years of classical engagement with its new album Jenny from Thebes. This interview with classics-major-turned-frontman John Darnielle includes a discussion of Greek tragedy.
TORI:
I haven’t read a book for fun since before I started my Ph.D., but I read lots of longform articles as a means of procrastination. Some of my favorites have been on listening to Taylor Swift in prison; why certain countries get certain potato chip flavors (I would die to try India’s Masala Magic Lays); a love song to Costco for those of us with Asian parents; love and rats; a deep, moving dive into downward mobility and the death spiral of an American family; a heartbreaking story of a non-abortion that features the line “Yes, your son is coming, and having a baby now will break your life.” Also, an ode to the nectar of the gods, Diet Coke, by an author who installed a soda fountain *inside his house.* And just in time for the holidays, Yankee Candle’s Stages of Abstraction.
YUNG IN:
It’s been a great couple of years for translated Classics—Stephanie McCarter’s Metamorphoses and Emily Wilson’s Iliad come to mind—but I’d like to use this space to share some works of literature translated from non-ancient languages: The Employees by Olga Ravn (translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken), whose blurb I won’t even try to paraphrase because it’s so good; Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft, whose own translation-themed novel I’m looking forward to reading next spring), although this summer I also stumbled across Tokarczuk’s children's book The Lost Soul (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, although mine is the Korean translation by Lee Jiwon) so I want to highlight that as well; The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker), about a declining aristocratic family in pre-World War II Japan; Notes of a Crocodile, a queer Bildungsroman by Taiwanese writer Qiu Miaojin (translated from the Chinese by Bonnie Huie); the poetry collection Phantom Pain Wings by high priestess of Korean feminist poetry Kim Hyesoon (translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi); Shoko’s Smile by Choi Eunyoung (translated from the Korean by Sung Ryu), a short story collection centering on young Korean women abroad; and Woman Running in the Mountains, a novel about a single mother’s journey toward liberation by Yūko Tsushima (translated from the Japanese by Geraldine Harcourt).
If you still want something Classics-related: Greek Lessons by Han Kang (translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won). If you want something that’s not actually Classics-related but has a classical title: Sphinx by Anne Garréta (translated from the French by Emma Ramadan) is a love story told entirely without gender markers, which is way harder to do in French than in English, if you’re willing and able to read the original. If you want something Classics-related that’s not a book: Saint-Omer, a French film by Alice Diop about a mother accused of murdering her child and a novelist who attends her trial in order to write a retelling of Medea, is the best thing I watched this year.
A GROUP EFFORT
Eidolon may have closed its doors, but the editors' group chat can't be killed. Here's a carefully and scrupulously curated selection of three years' worth of links we've shared in said chat, organized thematically.
Articles shared with some iteration of the comment "great title":
Michelle Obama’s White House Portrait: Arms and the Woman
Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies
‘I Have Never Been Anti-Vax,’ Says Lead Anti-Vaxxer RFK Jr
I Joined a Cult Believing I’d Be Closer to God. Then, I Was Castrated.
Jeffrey Epstein Spent Final Days In Fear of MS-13, Struggling With Constipation
Why Tiny Dicks Might Come Back Into Fashion
Donald Trump’s Attorneys Are in the Pants-Shitting Phase of Criminal Investigation Process: Report
A New Jersey Mystery: Who Dumped Hundreds of Pounds of Pasta, and Why?
Onion/Reductress titles that made us feel so seen we were kind of mad about it:
Lizzo is My Spirit Animal, and I Will Start Crying If You Unpack What I Just Said
Girlfriend Wants to Know If You’d Still Love Her If She Was Totally Different Person Who Was Awful
Woman Adds ‘Lol’ to the End of Her Divorce Papers to Show She’s Not Mad
‘Working On It!’ Says Woman Who Just Remembered She Has to Work on It
‘I Deserve a Little Treat,’ Says Woman Who Has Never Denied Herself Anything
Woman Feeling Doubly Conflicted About Attending ‘Harry Potter’-Themed Plantation Wedding
Predator About to be Publicly Exposed Complains About Cancel Culture
Uh Oh! Friend Clearly Not the Victim in Drama Being Described
An article that deserves its own category, given that it absolutely devastated all of us when we first read it, we should all just quit writing:
Reddit posts in which the title doesn't even begin to do the post justice. Seriously. You will never guess what these posts are about.
My [26M] girlfriend [24F] is acting weird and hiding things from me
AITA for eating salad in front of my girlfriend and then making a joke about it?
AITA for eating the toppings off my bfs pizza
My wife takes forever to order at Fast Food Restraunts
I (21M) have a feminine name and want to change it. My family is furious.
AITA for asking my girlfriend to start making me breakfast every morning? (actually this one is exactly what you would think it is, but still, the audacity)
Woman's Husband Leaves Her For "Predetermining" The Sex Of Their Baby
Fun & Games:
Whichipedia (you are given the titles of two wikipedia entries and must choose which is longer)
Time traveler (enter a date to learn what words were added to the dictionary that year)
Hidden Books game (can you identify the books hidden in these illustrations?)
Are You Even Fun? A Mostly Unscientific Quiz (are you, though?)
Absurd Trolley Problems (interactive)
New Antiquity Journal Issues (by @YaleClassicsLib / yaleclassicslib.bsky.social)
Gnomon Vol. 95, No. 8 (2023)
Journal of Latin Linguistics Vol. 22, No. 2 (2023)
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Vol. 105, No. 4 (2023)
Revue archéologique Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Vigiliae Christianae Vol. 77, No. 5 (2023)
Dictynna Vol. 30 (2023) #openaccess
Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission Vol. 101/102 2020/2021(2023) #openaccess
American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 128, No .1 (2023)
The Journal of Hellenic Studies Vol. 143 (2023) NB Jessica L. Lamont “Trade, literacy and documentary histories of the northern Black Sea”
The Classical Review Vol. 73, No. 2 (2023) NB Rosa Andújar “Profile: Greek Tragedy and Performance”
Karanos Vol. 6 (2023) #openaccess
Classical Antiquity Vol. 42, No. 2 (2023) Anne Carson’s Euripides: Takes on H of H Playbook (2021) and The Trojan Women (2021)
EuGeStA Vol. 13 (2023) #openaccesss NB Catherine Connors “A Feminist Abolitionist reads Plutarch, Euripides, and Plato”
Gerión Vol. 41 No. 2 (2023) #openaccess La identidad y la identidad étnica
Mediaevalia Vol. 44 (2023)
Old World: Journal of Ancient Africa and Eurasia Vol. 3 No. 1 (2023) #openaccess Bronze Age Civilizations
Archaeological Reports Vol. 69 (2023)
Acta Classica Vol. 66 (2023) NB Dylan Futter, “Theseus in the labyrinth”
Acta Classica Supplementum Vol. 9 (2023) Polemic in Ancient Historiography, Literature, and Culture
Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists Vol. 60 (2023) Papyri from the Summer Institutes in Papyrology at Berkeley, St. Louis, and Cincinnati
Historia Vol. 73, No.1 (2024)
medieval worlds Vol. 19 (2023) #openaccess Oaths in Premodern Japan and Premodern Europe
Journal of Music Archaeology Vol. 1 (2023) #openaccess New Journal
Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies Vol. 11, No. 4 (2023)
Antiquity Vol. 97, No. 396 (2023)
Circe de clásicos y modernos Vol. 27 No. 2 (2023) #openaccess
Moreana Vol. 60, No. 2 (2023) Round Table on Boethius and Thomas More
The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 113 (2023)
Revue de l'histoire des religions No. 240 (2023) NEOI : Des hommes nouveaux dieux entre Grèce et Rome
American Book Review Vol. 44, No. 3 (2023) Rethinking Classics
Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Vol. 138 (2023) #openaccess NB Sarah Hollaender “The Clothes Make the (Wo)man”
Antichthon Vol. 57 (2023)
After Constantine Christmas Issue (2023) #opeaccess
TAPA Vol. 153, No. 2 (2023) Rupture and Return
The Cambridge Classical Journal Vol. 69 (2023)
Epoché Vol. 28, No. 1 (2023) NB Mariska Leunissen, “Aristotle’s Animalization of Mothers and Motherly Love”
Happy Holidays from the crew at Pasts Imperfect. We are going on a break until mid-January, but are wishing you and yours a happy new year. See you in 2024, y’all.
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This whole issue is just glorious. Thank you for bringing so many smiles to my face today.