Video

Video

“The Lives of Homer” and “Life of Ferdowsi” Myths

As previously published on Classical Inquiries, Gregory Nagy and Olga Davidson discuss, “Life of Homer” and “Life of Ferdowsi” in this video recording. The combined research of Nagy and Davidson on ancient “Life of Homer” and medieval “Life of Ferdowsi” narratives respectively has shown that the traditional “biographies” about these two poets, as transmitted by a vast variety of communities, can be studied as sources of historical information about the… Read more

Video

The Lives of Homer as Aetiologies for Homeric Poetry

This video recording was originally shown at an international conference held at Baku, November 27–28, 2015. In this video Professor Gregory Nagy explores the myths relating to The Lives of Homer. “This inquiry centers on the surviving texts of ‘Life of Homerʼ narrative traditions, to which I refer simply as Lives of Homer. These Lives, I argue, can be read as sources of historical information about the reception of Homeric poetry.… Read more

Video

CHS Dialogues | The Song of Moses, The Shield of Achilles, and ox-vision Hera

In this episode, “The Song of Moses, The Shield of Achilles, and ox-vision Hera,” Gregory Nagy and Keith Stone discuss: A new book by Keith Stone: Singing Moses’s Song: A Performance-Critical Analysis of Deuteronomy’s Song of Moses  The Shield of Achilles in Iliad 18 and in myths about the life of Homer The meaning of epithets associated with Hera and Athena, which are sometimes translated into English as “ox-eyed’/’owl-eyed’, or better… Read more

Video

The Psychology of Alcibiades

Professor Norman Sandridge of Howard University gave a speech at Villanova University titled The Psychopathy of Alcibiades: Applying a Modern Psychological Construct to an Ancient Leader. Professor Sandridge says, “In this lecture I make the argument that Plutarch’s portrait of the fifth-century Athenian statesman, Alcibiades, shares many character traits with the contemporary construct of the psychopath, namely, grandiosity, low emotional affect, instrumental aggression, and chameleon-like versatility. Moreover, Alcibiades’ conduct as… Read more

Video

Homeric Questions with Leonard Muellner

In his book Homeric Questions, Gregory Nagy explains his choice of title as follows: The title of this work is marked by the word Questions, in the plural. It takes the place of the expected singular, along with a definite article, associated with that familiar phrase, “the Homeric Question.” Today there is no agreement about what the Homeric Question might be. Perhaps the most succinct of many possible formulations is this… Read more