O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.

Tackling Shakespeare's 1604 play Othello. It goes a lot better than last time, altho Rich gets a bit of a fright when the lead actor comes out in blackface.

Othello the outsider: Was interracial marriage an uncrossable divide for a man of Othello's station? What do we think of race-swapped casting? What exactly is a Moor anyway? A special investigation.

Iago as master manipulator: Why does he keep escalating his schemes? How did the most conniving man in Venice get the nickname 'honest Iago'? Is he too OP to be believable? We try to make sense of whether he's motivated by ambition, sexual jealousy, or is purely in it for the love of the game.

Sexual jealousy as a uniquely destabilising force: How does a general who can stare down an armed mob go to pieces over his wife's handkerchief? Benny runs through Othello's many epistemological mistakes. Cam gives us the evo psych line on why men have a deep-seated fear of being cucked. Some embarrassing personal confessions emerge.

Full transcripts are available at doyouevenlit.com, where you can filter and search episodes by key ideas, authors, etc.

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) when an old black ram is tupping your white ewe (00:06:50) race-swapped casting and a brief history of blackface (00:16:26) So You've Been Passed Over For Promotion (00:23:46) What does Iago actually want? (00:30:04) the crusty handkerchief and 'eavesdropping conversation' gambit (00:38:11) Confirmation bias and bad epistemology (00:44:22) Let the bodies hit the floor (00:49:21) Sexual jealousy as a uniquely destabilising force (00:59:11) original vs modern translations discourse

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NEXT UP:

• Middlemarch finale (hopefully some time before christmas, if Cam ever pulls his finger out of his ass)
• Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey