Ryan read today’s meditation and talks to Classics scholar and professor Shadi Bartsch about Seneca’s contradictory service to the emperor Nero, why the classics are still relevant and important in modern society, how to use ancient texts as a way to reflect and think critically about oneself, culture, and politics, her translation of Virgil's The Aeneid, and more.

Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer is the Helen A. Regenstein Professor at the University of Chicago. She works on Roman imperial literature, the history of rhetoric and philosophy, and on the reception of the western classical tradition in contemporary China. She is the author of 5 books on the ancient novel, Neronian literature, political theatricality, and Stoic philosophy,

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