Who hasn’t dreamed of having a robot to accomplish certain tasks? For a long time people have conceived the existence and the possibility of having or creating such automatons, or robots, or androids or humanoids in their imaginary worlds, to replace them, or to do things in their place, or just to be with them. The word “robot” is recent (a 20th-century word), but the ancients used the word “automaton”… Read more
A guest post by Leonard Muellner In October of 2016, I had the pleasure of talking about Homeric poetry to the largest audience I have ever addressed in the many years I’ve spent teaching Classics—over 500 students in a huge new amphitheater at the University of Lille in northeastern France. The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lille is part of an emphatically public system, supported by tax dollars… Read more
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
~ A Quick Guide to Chicago Homer for Word Studies, with Illustrated Worked Examples ~ During their research, the Oinops Study Group made use of the Chicago Homer for some aspects of their research, and the Word Study Learning Group have been exploring further the types of searches and comparisons that can be made using this online resource. These community-generated videos walk through these techniques, and the PDF files provide a… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Professor Graeme D. Bird (Gordon College) for a special Open House Discussion. Professor Bird, who is both a classicist and jazz musician, joined members of the community for a discussion about Homeric poetry, multitextuality, and jazz. For a general introduction to Bird and his work, read “Homeric Variations: Interview with Classicist and Jazz Musician Graeme Bird”. You can watch on our YouTube channel, or in… Read more