This week on the LRB Podcast, a free episode from one of our Close Readings series. For their final conversation Among the Ancients, Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones turn to the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Said by Machiavelli to be the last of the ‘five good emperors’ who ruled Rome for most of the second century CE, Marcus oversaw devastating wars on the frontiers, a deadly plague and economic turmoil. The writings known in English as The Meditations, and in Latin as ‘to himself’, were composed in Greek in the last decade of Marcus’ life. They reveal his preoccupation with illness, growing old, death and posthumous reputation, as he urges himself not to be troubled by such transient things.

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Further reading in the LRB:

Mary Beard: Was he quite ordinary?

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n14/mary-beard/was-he-quite-ordinary

Emily Wilson: I have gorgeous hair

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n11/emily-wilson/i-have-gorgeous-hair

Shadi Bartsch: Dying to Make a Point

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n22/shadi-bartsch/dying-to-make-a-point

M.F. Burnyeat: Excuses for Madness

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n20/m.f.-burnyeat/excuses-for-madness

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Wynne Godley was by turns a professional oboist, a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, an economist at the Treasury and a director of the Royal Opera House. Yet at thirty he found himself ‘living through an artificial self’ and turned to psychoanalysis for help.

Masud Khan was a protégé of D.W. Winnicott and the darling of British psychoanalysis. He was also much else besides. In this unforgettable piece from 2001, Godley describes his baffling and disastrous sessions with Khan.

Read by Duncan Wilkins.

Find the original piece and further reading at the episode page: https://lrb.me/godleypod

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Ghassan Abu-Sittah and Muhammad Shehada join Adam Shatz to describe what life was like in Gaza in the months and years leading up to the Hamas attack on Israel last October, and to discuss the experiences of Gazans during Israel’s subsequent – and ongoing – devastation of the territory.

More in the LRB:

Adam Shatz: Israel's Descent

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n12/adam-shatz/israel-s-descent

Pankaj Mishra: The Shoah after Gaza

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n06/pankaj-mishra/the-shoah-after-gaza

Also available to watch: https://youtu.be/_w3Pe00I_Ro

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