Odyssey

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Homer’s Thebes: Epic Rivalries and the Appropriation of Mythical Pasts, with Joel Christensen

We were excited to welcome Joel Christensen for an Open House. The title of the discussion is “Homer’s Thebes: Epic Rivalries and the Appropriation of Mythical Pasts,” based on his research and collaboration with Elton T. E. Barker. The event took place on Friday, March 6 at 11:00 a.m. EST. It was live-streamed and recorded. In preparation, you might like to read Iliad 4.1–421 and Odyssey 11.225–332, as well as… Read more

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Confessions of Murder in the Odyssey, with Eunice Kim

We were excited to welcome Eunice Kim of Furman University for an Open House. The title of the discussion is: ‘Confessions of Murder in the Odyssey’. The session was live-streamed and recorded. The event took place on Thursday, February 6 at 11:00 a.m. EST. In preparation for this event, you might like to read the following passages: Iliad 24.480–484 Odyssey 13.256–286 Odyssey 14.378–385 Odyssey 15.221–278 Odyssey 22.27–59 Odyssey 23.113–122 Odyssey 24.… Read more

Topic for Discussion

Emotions from Greek Antiquity

Recent Book Club discussion prompted me to think about how human emotions were depicted in some of the readings from Greek antiquity. In the Trojan Women, Andromache’s reaction to her son’s fate—death by being thrown out of the battlements—is not physical, a loud, wailing lament, but a subdued, courageous reaction. To get a proper burial for her son, she does not fight back vehemently when the child is taken. The… Read more

Visiting Scholars

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

Reading Homer

Homeric Greek | Odyssey 1.239–251: Harpies, suitors and all the Achaeans

We are pleased to share this segment in the series on reading Homeric epic in ancient Greek. In each installment we read, translate, and discuss a small passage in the original Greek in the most accessible way. If you’ve ever dreamed of reading Homer in the original, here is your chance to do so with teachers who have spent a lifetime thinking about this poetry. With their guidance even new… Read more