Hello everyone! I just thought I would let you all know that I’ve done two interview videos for Nick Barksdale’s YouTube channel “The Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages.” Nick posted the first video on his channel a while ago, but I forgot to announce it on here when he did and, since he posted the second one today, I thought I would bring both of them to my readers’ attention.
The first video
We recorded the first video back in March 2021 and Nick posted it on his channel on 28 April. It is about ethnic and racial diversity in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds and is primarily based on the post I published here on my blog on 30 September 2020 titled “Were the Ancient Greeks and Romans White?” but it incorporates information I’ve discussed in a few of my other posts on this blog as well. Here is the video:
A lot of people got really upset over this interview because, in it, I argue that it is not accurate to describe ancient Greece and Rome as “white civilizations.” That being said, I think I made my argument very well in this interview. It seems to me that the vast majority of the people who got upset about the video didn’t really grasp the full nuance of my argument and I think that many of them didn’t even watch the full video because they just got so angry after maybe only watching the very beginning.
The second video
Nick and I recorded the second video on 2 June 2021 and Nick posted it on his channel earlier today. It is about the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire in late antiquity and is partly a response to an earlier interview with the author Catherine Nixey that Nick posted on his channel on 4 April 2021, in which he interviewed her about her book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World.
In his intro, Nick describes my interview as a “rebuttal” to Nixey, but I personally wouldn’t go quite that far. I think it’s more of a situation where I’m sharing a different perspective on the same subject matter. For the most part, I’m not really disputing Nixey’s evidence so much as disagreeing with her narrative. Here’s the video:
Overall, I think I did a decent job on this interview, but I made a couple mistakes that seemed really obvious to me when I was able to watch the video for myself. At one point about midway through the interview, I say that a student will “never” encounter Galenos of Pergamon in a classics course, but that was a bit of an in-the-moment exaggeration. I meant to say that a student is unlikely to read Galenos of Pergamon’s works in a classics course, especially at the undergraduate level, because he’s not one of the favored authors.
Also, near the end of the interview, I mistakenly say that Diocletian destroyed the Broucheion quarter of Alexandria in “291 CE,” but I meant to say “297 CE.” I accidentally said the wrong date because I was thinking of the destruction of the Serapeion, which happened in 391 CE.
I also really wanted to talk about Hypatia at the end of the interview, but Nick was running out of time and I knew it was going to take a while to really do her justice, so we decided to do a separate interview about her at a later date.
Future interviews
Nick and I are currently planning to do many future interviews, including one about Hypatia, which will be based primarily on the post I wrote about her in August 2018. Nick is also especially interested in interviewing me about my post “Jordan Peterson Does Not Understand Mythology” that I published on 5 April 2021, but we haven’t figured out how we would adapt that article for a YouTube audience, since it’s really long and goes into depth analyzing specific things that Peterson has written and said.
Oh, wow!
You are most definitely one of the people I admire the most at the moment, and being able to hear your voice was quite nice!
Well, I’m certainly flattered to hear that I have an admirer, although I’m not quite so sure that I deserve to be admired by anyone.
A lot of people have made comments about my voice. Is it different from what you expected?
You most certainly deserve to be admired, because
1) You try to dispel misinformation that runs rampant, and that sometimes is used to justify hatred, bigotry, discrimination and such things
2) You (among other people online who post about history) are fundamental in preserving something which I, as probably many other people, care about, that is, antiquity studies, and protect the field from being appropriated by reactionary and toxic individuals. I say this as an Italian man who would like to explore his heritage a little, but always has to be careful about fascists and stuff
3) You are just very interesting 😛
As for your voice, I really don’t see what people would comment on it. Personally, I found it suits you, I’ve always found that you have a very nice face, and your voice is equally nice \^_\^
I thought that your critique of Nixey’s Darkening Age was very even handed, unlike many others that attacked her incessantly. For Example, Tim O’Neill and Avril Cameron:
https://historyforatheists.com/2017/11/review-catherine-nixey-the-darkening-age/
https://davidtinikashvili.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/cameron-blame-the-christians-review/
Have you read their reviews, and if so, what is your opinion of them?
I tried to be very polite in my critique of Nixey for several reasons. The first reason is because I try to be fairly civil to the people I critique in general. The second reason is because, based on everything I know about Nixey from reading her book and watching her interview, she seems like a decent person. I’m willing to break my policy of civility in order to condemn people who advocate deplorable things, such as Tucker Carlson (who has pretty much built his entire career by promoting overt Neo-Nazi narratives and talking points), Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson (both of whom have built their media careers by promoting thinly-veiled misogyny and white supremacy) or Camille Paglia (who currently promotes bigotry against transgender people and has previously been a vocal public supporter of men sexually molesting young boys). I currently have no reason to believe that Nixey is an odious person like any of the people whom I have just mentioned. In fact, in her interview with Nick, she comes across as quite friendly and even willing to accept criticism, as long as it’s made in good faith. I just happen to have a few disagreements with her about history.
The third reason why I tried to be very respectful towards Nixey is because Nick Barksdale told me that he really enjoyed Nixey’s book, but he was gracious enough to give me an opportunity to use his platform to critique it. I would have been respectful anyway, but, under those circumstances, I felt it was especially important to avoid being overly harsh and judgmental in any way that might make Nick regret giving me a platform.
I am actually a longtime follower of Tim O’Neill’s blog and I read his review of Nixey’s book all the way back when he first published it in November 2017. I agree with the vast majority of what he says in the article in terms of the facts about the history of late antiquity, but I do think that he expresses his opinion of Nixey’s work in an unnecessarily harsh manner. He is, of course, welcome to express his opinions however he wishes, but he’s much more scathing than I personally would have been. I haven’t read Averil Cameron’s review, but I am aware of her opinion.
superb
i really liked your voice and the way you argued your case in were ancient Greeks and romans white? i am nine. Have a nice day.
i really liked your voice and the way you argued your case in were ancient Greeks and Romans white
I’ve watched the first video so far. You did a great job! Very engaging discussion, the same way your blog posts always are. Nice to hear your voice as well.
Thank you so much! I’m very glad to hear that you’re enjoying the videos. I’ve already scheduled to do a third interview with Nick next Saturday.