Professor Olga Levaniouk visited Hour 25 on Thursday, January 16th in the live chatroom and then answered some questions on this topic thread in the Forum, our meeting space for visiting scholars.
She visited the chatroom again the following day.
Levaniouk is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Washington. Her first book, Eve of the Festival: Making Myth in Odyssey 19, uses the first dialogue between Penelope and Odysseus as a means to explore myth in Homeric epic.
Levaniouk has been a Mentor in the Discussion Board for both the first and second sessions of HeroesX. Hour 20 features a special video in which she dialogues with Professor Nagy about Hour 20 Text I (Hippolytus 1423 to 1430). In that video she also describes her research on wedding practices, laments, and love songs.
Hour 20 Text I –Euripides Hippolytus 1423–1430
|1423 To you, poor sufferer, in compensation for these bad things that have happened to you here, |1424 the greatest honors [tīmai] in the city [polis] of Trozen |1425 I will give to you: unwed girls before they get married |1426 will cut off their hair for you, and throughout the length of time [aiōn] |1427 you will harvest the very great sorrows [penthos plural] of their tears. |1428 And for all time there will be a thought that comes along with the songmaking directed at you by virgin girls, |1429 and it will be a troubled thought. The story and the names will not fall aside unremembered |1430 – the story of the passionate love [erōs] of Phaedra for you. No, it will never be passed over in silence.
(Trans. Gregory Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours)