Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
Benjamin Sharkey
956 posts
Benjamin Sharkey
@SharkeyBenjamin
DPhil History @UniofOxford @magdalenoxford. Syriac Christianity, Central Asia, Islamic history, Mongol Empire, Global History. Scholar @NizamiOxford.
Katılım Ekim 2022
315 Takip Edilen754 Takipçiler
Christoper Nolan movies ranked:
Tier 3 - you don’t need to watch these ever again
9. Dunkirk
8. Memento
7. Batman Begins
6. Oppenheimer
Tier 2 - these are fantastic on TV especially December 26th-30th
5. Dark Knight Rises
4. The Prestige
Tier 1 - you should watch these once a year the rest of your life
3. Inception
2. The Dark Knight
1. Interstellar
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The culmination of the Constantinian experiment in Christianising imperial rule: the martyr emperor.
Charles A. Coulombe@RCCoulombe
It being the feast of SS. Constantine and Helen, I’ll repost this icon.
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Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
Eggers should do a Greek Tragedy, not a Homeric Epic
E.g. Medea or The Bacchae
Serf@TheRoyalSerf
Robert Eggers should have gotten The Odyssey
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@DrMichaelBonner I assume because it didn’t contain such obviously useful knowledge as works of medicine, astrology and logic did
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Far more interesting to contemplate why the Abbasid translation movement ignored the Homeric poems, along with all other Greek belles lettres.
tantum@QuasLacrimas
The little errors Lazaridis fingers here (confusing 1453 and 1437, saying Homer was translated into “all” vernacular languages instead of “some”, fabricating imaginary Arabic translations as a liturgical statement of faith) may seem minor, but these then become the starting point for a new generation of pseudo-scholars who cite these errors as authoritative and add on little distortions of their own, and by and by “mainstream scholarly opinion” is a huge Leviathan of lies swimming forward on its own momentum, with no remaining connection to historical fact.
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@DrMichaelBonner This gorytos from a Scythian royal tomb is often interpreted as depicting scenes from the life of Achilles. It was probably made by Greeks in Crimea, but commissioned for a Scythian king
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For the record, Dio and Aelius are probably not right about Scythians, the Achaemenids and Arsacids, or Brahmins declaiming the Iliad. But the assertion proves that, at least for a certain period, Greek luminaries believed that the Iliad and Odyssey were indeed universal epics. Basil of Caesarea later implies the same thing when he argues that the Homeric works have meanings and applications that go far beyond their original purpose and context.
MRJB 🇬🇧🇨🇦@DrMichaelBonner
Wrong. Writers such as Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristides imply a universal interest in the Homeric poems which were said to be known among Scythians, the Persian kings, and the inhabitants of India. Etruscan and Roman interest is quite obvious. Theophilus of Edessa and Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Syriac-speakjng Christian luminaries of the Abassid era) both knew and appreciated their Homer, as I have said earlier.
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Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
ok, but if you reincarnated genghis khan in the 1950s and asked him who he wanted to play him in the movie he definitely would have said john wayne
Carl@HistoryBoomer
John Wayne as Genghis Khan.
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Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785) is said to have translated some of the Iliad into Syriac. Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873), the greatest Christian translator of the Abbasid era, knew the Iliad by heart and apparently declaimed bits of it often. Passages of Homer in the Aristotelian texts were obviously brought into Arabic more than once. But the Homeric poems were never wholly translated into Arabic (nor incidentally were the other Greek poets, tragedians, or historians). Nevertheless, the Third Voyage of Sindbad, from the Thousand and One Nights, is very similar to Odyssey IX.
Iosif Lazaridis@iosif_lazaridis
Taking a red pen to Emily Wilson's Odyssey Introduction and to her first page.
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@ross_baglin Love the strong opinions! Waugh is entrancing!
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@SharkeyBenjamin I am 100% in agreement re Waugh and 100% in disagreement that Wilde’s book deserves to be in the top 100.
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I stand by my opinion that Wind in the Willows or Three Men in a Boat is the greatest English novel.
It’s also crazy there’s no mention of Dorian Gray or Evelyn Waugh. Oh and Ivan Ilyich is Tolstoy’s best work.
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Does anyone have any opinions about the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey?
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@dcsandbrook @bookclubpodhq But how on earth could they come up with a list without consulting Britain’s favourite literary critic?
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The Guardian's much-debated list of the greatest novels is ... a perfectly good and sensible list.
The people whining about it can't have read the books. But don't worry. We'll cover them all on @bookclubpodhq eventually.
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@SharkeyBenjamin I think most of these, with the exception of 1984 and The Great Gatsby, are too long. But then I have not actually read Middlemarch yet. I might find it too short!
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For at least the first 1,300 years of Christian history there were more Christians outside Europe than within
Ramin Nasibov@RaminNasibov
What historical fact sounds fake but is true?
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Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
We have a cover, and the countdown has started. John Woods' magnum opus will be published on May 28. I am honored to be the co-editor of this volume and the subsequent one, which will include studies on Timurid history by colleagues from different countries.
@Brill_ME_Africa
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Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
Given that 'viking' is strictly an activity rather than an identity, the only true Viking bishop was Christian of Aarhus, who led a raid on England in 1069
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@si_rubinstein How much is Starmer paying you for these posts? (Because it’s not enough)
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Time for Sir Keir to channel his inner Trump. Call him Whiny Wes. Fat Wes. Slimy Streeting. And so on.
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Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
I don't usually share job ads, but this postdoc at Magdalen College, Oxford, looking at the CS Lewis' scholarly work in the context of his relationship with Tolkien sounds like it would be right up the street of many mutuals!
magdalencareers.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/a7…
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Benjamin Sharkey retweetledi
Imagine a 14th-century "universal" prayer
The 1348 Stele of Sulaiman from #Dunhuang features the Buddhist mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" in 6 scripts: Sanskrit, Tibetan, Old Uyghur, 'Phags-pa, Tangut, & Chinese
A stunning relic of Yuan Dynasty multiculturalism!
中研院史語所 Institute of History and Philology@ihptaiwan
The “Liao-Chin-Yuan Rubbings” database features 2,200 items (dating 946–1382) of various scripts (Chinese, Khitan, Jurchen, Mongolian) with 1,800 having transcriptions. These valuable materials for medieval Chinese phonology and history are now available. dap.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/database/7/
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