Book Reviewing in Classics, with Clifford Ando (BMCR) and Mary Beard (the TLS)

Mary Beard, Classics editor at the Times Literary Supplement, and Clifford Ando, senior editor of the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, join me in the Lesche to discuss the state of Classics reviewing today. 

• How do the TLS and BMCR assign appropriate reviewers? 
• What makes for a good review? 
• What's the line between critique and nastiness? 
• Why are reviews these days so often lacking in susbtantive criticism? 
• What do editors wish review authors knew or would consider before writing a review? 

Some bibliography

• Clifford Ando, "BMCR: A view under the hood." Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2022.11.26. (Read all the papers from the 30th anniversary celebration of BMCR here. Several deal with book reviewing.)
• Mary Beard, Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations. Liveright 2013. (See especially the Afterword, "Reviewing Classics".)
• Daniel Mendelsohn, "A Critic's Manifesto," The New Yorker, August 28, 2012.

About our guests

Clifford Ando teaches Classics and History at the University of Chicago.  His work focuses on the histories of law, religion, and government in the ancient world.  He is the author, editor, and translator of some 20 books, and he has served as an editor, associate editor, or senior editor of Bryn Mawr Classical Review for not quite twenty years.

Mary Beard is professor emerita of classics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College, and professor of Ancient Literature at the Royal Academy. She is also the classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, a fellow of the British Academy, and an international member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She is the author of more than twenty books on the ancient world. Her latest book, Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old, is due out in spring 2026 with Profile Books (UK) and the University of Chicago Press (USA).

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Thanks for joining us in the Lesche!

Podcast art: Daniel Blanco
Theme music: "The Song of Seikilos," recomposed by Eftychia Christodoulou using Sibelius

This podcast is made possible with the generous support of Brown University’s Department of Classical Studies and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study.

Instagram: @leschepodcast
Email: leschepodcast@gmail.com
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