unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod, or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

In this episode, Dr Steve Kershaw talks about Plato’s Critias dialogue, a text that’s not only unfinished but actually ends mid-sentence – and no-one knows why. It also happens to be the source of the legend of Atlantis. We talk about why Plato may have abandoned it, and how its incompleteness has fed into its (mis)interpretation.

Steve wrote his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Richard Buxton, arguably the leading scholar on Greek myth in the world. He’s spent the last 40 years travelling in the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans, both physically and in his head, and he's been a Classics tutor for some 30 years. He currently works out of the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.

Useful links

Steve’s Brief History of Atlantis: Plato’s Ideal State (including Steve’s translation of Critias): A Brief History of Atlantis by Stephen P. Kershaw | Hachette UK (littlebrown.co.uk) 

Mythologica, Steve’s children’s book on Greek mythology Mythologica by Stephen P. Kershaw | Quarto At A Glance | The Quarto Group (quartoknows.com)

You’re Dead to Me episode on Atlantis: You're Dead To Me - Atlantis - BBC Sounds 

Steve’s website: http://www.stevekershaw.com/index.html