Archive

Book Club | November 2019: Euripides Trojan Women

The maidens I brought up to see chosen for some marriage high, for strangers have I reared them, and seen them snatched away. Nevermore can I hope to be seen by them, nor shall my eyes behold them ever in the days to come. And last, to crown my misery, I shall be brought to Hellas, a slave in my old age. Our Book Club selection this month is a… Read more

Open House | Re-inventing Old Craftsmanship, with Rachele Pierini

We were excited to welcome Rachele Pierini, University of Bologna for an Open House. The topic of the discussion is “Re-inventing Old Craftsmanship: Mycenaean Furniture and Today’s Design.” The event was live-streamed on Thursday, November 7 at 11:00 a.m. EST, and was recorded. You might like to read this PDF handout: “Reinventing Old Craftsmanship – Mycenaean Furniture and Today’s Design” You can watch the event on our YouTube channel, or… Read more

Open House | A Land Called Crete, with Andrew Koh

We are excited to welcome Andrew Koh, of the MIT Center for Materials Research and the Harvard Semitic Museum, for an Open House discussion entitled ‘A Land Called Crete: From Harriet Boyd Hawes to the Cretan Collections Project’. The event was streamed live on Thursday, October 24 at 11 a.m. EDT, and was recorded. To prepare for the event you could (1) read Odyssey 19.172–184, the context for which is… Read more

Mothers and sons in epic | Part 2: Mortal mothers

In part 1 we looked at divine mothers in epic. Now in part 2 we see the difficulty of being a mortal mother of a hero. Unlike some of the examples we looked at featuring divine mothers, these sons do not rely on their mothers or ask them for help, and the mothers seem to have no control over events or their sons’ lives. But as with the divine mothers,… Read more

Open House | Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology, with Gregory Nagy

We were excited to welcome back Gregory Nagy of Harvard University, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature and the Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC. for an Open House. The topic of the discussion is “Thinking comparatively about Greek mythology.” The event was live-streamed on Thursday, October 10 at 11:00 a.m. EDT, and was recorded. In preparation, you might like to… Read more