nostos

Transcript: nostos, Names, and the Younger Generation of Heroes | Open House, with Gregory Nagy

We were pleased to welcome Gregory Nagy, and Allie Marbry, for another Open House session. Following last week’s conversation, and in conjunction with the readings of the Book Club, our discussion topics included questions from the community about some of the issues that emerged from those conversations, including: The nostos of Odysseus, and the nostos of Telemakhos The naming of Odysseus by Autolykos, and their association with Hermes, including the… Read more

In Focus: Odyssey 1, lines 1–10

|1 That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, that versatile [polu-tropos] man, who in very many ways |2 veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred citadel of Troy. |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. |4 Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his… Read more

Community Discussion: Fostering Civil Dialogue

We are pleased to share the following video, which was filmed for a HeroesX segment of AlumniX. In this clip Professor Nagy responds to a question about whether or not heroes can hope to achieve something that is beyond their portion or fate [huper moiran]. Nagy argues that within the ancient Greek song culture, the poetic phrase “beyond fate” can be equivalent to saying something is “beyond tradition.” This idea becomes… Read more

Open House | Nestor and Indo-European Twin Myths, with Douglas Frame

We are pleased to share the following video featuring classicist Douglas Frame in which he talks about the role of Nestor in the Homeric poems. He is joined by members of the Hour 25 (now Kosmos Society) community. Together they also discuss absent signifiers, nostos, and Indo-European twin myths. You can watch on our YouTube channel, or in the frame below. You may also download the transcript for this video:… Read more