Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Hidden Cities

    Hidden Cities

    Newsreel Hidden cities fascinate me. The idea that beneath modern towns there’s a substrate of urban life that once was. There are a lot of them, which is no surprise because cities are built where they are for a reason, and the reason doesn’t usually change even if the city dies. In Canada we don’t […]

  • Hero of the Ages

    Hero of the Ages

    The Adventures of Phillip Part 2 Disheartened after learning I was in the furthest back of the backwater districts of Sparta instead of a glorious city in Egypt, I left the farmer behind and, trudging up the road, slumped down on a tree stump. Most of my coin had gone into paying for this trip, […]

  • Things Long Buried

    Things Long Buried

    Newsreel Sometimes there are amazing discoveries in the field, and it’s worth highlighting several of the cooler or crazier ones. With that in mind, Labyrinth is introducing our Newsreel series, which will collate and comment on a few prominent discoveries or articles in classical or medieval studies in the past week. Today, for our inaugural […]

  • Ancient in Modern

    Despite the fact that we study people who lived and died over a thousand years ago, their influence is still profound on our society even today, and not just in our legal codes and practices, but in popular culture. The Avengers are rife with medieval imagery, and movies Gladiator and shows like Rome demonstrate how […]

  • Gregorian Jams

    I’m on vacation this weekend, but thought I’d share with you a song I wrote about the International Congress of Medieval Studies. Because I’m a nerd. Who raps. About nerdy things sometimes. I also want to talk a bit about Kalamazoo, which is where the conference is, and what we usually refer to it as. 

  • Zomg Vampires!

    Zomg Vampires!

    A find in June in Bulgaria was the latest in weird vampire archaeology discoveries that have happened in the 21st century. That’s right. Vampires. From the looks of things, not the brooding, sparkly stalkers of teenage girls who are currently the stars of stage and screen, but blood-drinking sociopaths, terrifying in life and unstoppable in […]

  • Hellenic Vacation

    Hellenic Vacation

    The Adventures of Phillip Part 1 I dozed lightly on the deck as I heard the boatman call that we were coming into dock. At last, a real vacation. Anything to get away from the farm, really. Let me tell you, the farm may be small, but the work is large. But a few weeks […]

  • The Greek Alphabet

    The Greek Alphabet

    As Sydney mentioned in her post on Friday, the Greek alphabet can be a little intimidating. It’s a lot of new and unfamiliar symbols, so I thought I’d help out with a song!

  • My First Meeting With Greek

    My relationship with Latin had not been going well. We often fought and many times it would leave the room screaming “You don’t know me!” and I would sit utterly defeated because it was true: I didn’t know Latin. I tried though, but things were barely working. I kept telling myself that I did take […]

  • Titan Quest: the Immortal Throne

    Titan Quest: the Immortal Throne

    Titan Quest is a PC game set in ancient Greece, which includes all kinds of historical rockstars (Think more Leonidas and less Led Zeppelin) standing about and giving quests to you, the hero of the tale. The Titans are loose from their prison, mythical creatures have invaded the land, and only you can stop them!

Got any book recommendations?