HeyJaredMike Fontaine
Free speech, humor, power, persuasion, and human folly—from ancient Greece and Rome to modern institutions.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 10
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- Sep 28, 2026
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- Aug 4, 2026
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Tomorrow: How to Speak Freely (opens the original)
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Tomorrow, How to Speak Freely is officially published.The book began with a question that has bothered people for more than two thousand years: what exactly do we owe someone who insists on speaking his mind, even when his speech is irritating, destabilizing, heretical, or breathtakingly offensive?Plato’s Apology gives us the most famous version of that problem. Socrates is prosecuted for impiety, accused of brainwashing the young, of not believing in the gods the government believes in, and of
The Lost Foreskins of Joannes Burmeister (opens the original)
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This essay is also published in its permanent form on michaelfontaine.com.On Labor Day—yes, this is a true story—my phone lit up with the kind of email every scholar dreams of getting, and I blinked to be sure it was real:From: Tymoteusz MikołajczakDate: September 7, 2026Subject: Burmeister’s AsinariaDear Professor Fontaine,I am a senior librarian at the Department of Rare Books of the National Library of Poland, wr
How to Speak Freely—with Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff (opens the original)
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Is Anyone Still Doing Greek Textual Criticism? (opens the original)
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I have a question for my fellow classicists: is anyone still doing Greek textual criticism?I don’t mean editing papyri, deciphering new fragments, or improving our knowledge of manuscript traditions. I know you’re doing that.I mean textual criticism in the old-fashioned, old-school, Germany/Oxbridge/Italy sense: looking at a familiar passage in a canonical author and asking whether the words printed in our editions are actually the words the author wrote.When I was in grad school, this was the o
Why We Say and Do Stupid Things (opens the original)
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Why do we agree to things we know we shouldn’t? Why do we overeat, binge, get high, or pursue pleasure even to the point of self-destruction?The ancient Greek writer Plutarch thought that saying yes against our better judgment often arose not from weak willpower but from an excessive fear of disappointing other people. We would rather betray ourselves than endure the embarrassment or shame of saying no.I recently joined Massimo Pigliucci for a conversation about this problem, the strange ancient
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