ancient literature

Jacke and special guest Charles Halton take a look at the poetry of Enheduanna (2286-2252 BC), a high priestess in ancient Mesopotamia who is the earliest known poet whose name has been recorded.

Charles Halton (Ph.D., Hebrew Union College) is the co-author of Women’s Writing of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Anthology of the Earliest Female Authors. He is currently the managing editor of Marginalia, a magazine of intellectual culture and a channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com.

New!!! Looking for an easy to way to buy Jacke a coffee? Now you can at paypal.me/jackewilson. Your generosity is much appreciated!

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature.

Thousands of years ago, using techniques of deep meditation, Indian mystics conducted investigations into the powers of the universe and the nature of human consciousness, developing ideas about a single supreme god, the eternal soul, and the relationship of individuals to the spiritual cosmos. Their flashes of insight were passed along orally for hundreds of years before being recorded in written form sometime around 900 B.C. The best of these are now called the Upanishads, and their teachings have provided a philosophical tradition to hundreds of millions of practitioners of the Hindu religion as well as many other seekers of wisdom and truth. In this episode, host Jacke Wilson introduces his project to investigate the nature of the Upanishads and see what these ancient texts might (or might not) be able to provide to a modern-day seeker.