Open House | Hammering A Nail With A Nail: Reading Collections of Ancient Greek Proverbs, with Joel Christensen

We were pleased to welcome Joel Christensen (University of Texas at San Antonio/Brandeis University) for a discussion about ancient Greek proverbs, which was recorded.

Joel Christensen prepared several blog posts for us to focus on.

• Paroimiai: Proverbs from Ancient Greece to Star Trek
• A Selection of Proverbs
• “Two Ears, One Mouth”: Hunting a Proverb from Zeno to Paul’s Mom
• Marcellus Rests from the Arian Heresy to Complain about Greek Proverbs

You can watch the event on our YouTube channel, or in the frame below.

For further videos please visit the Watch page.

Dr. Joel Christensen

Dr. Joel Christensen has been Associate Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and has recently taken up the position of Associate Professor at Brandeis University. His research interests include Greek epic and archaic poetry; rhetoric and literary theory; linguistics; and myth. He received his BA from Brandeis University in Classics and English and his PhD in Classics from New York University, earning an additional Certificate in Poetics and Theory. He is actively engaged in research that explores the development of literature and language in ancient Greece. His dissertation, “The Failure of Speech: Rhetoric and Politics in the Iliad,” an examination of the Iliad‘s internal conception of effective speech and the political importance of language, has developed into a series of articles on the use of language in Homer and the relationship between our Iliad and a putative poetic tradition.

In addition to explorations of language in the Iliad, Dr. Christensen also collaborates with E.T.E. Barker (Open University, U. K.) on rivalry and generic relationships in Archaic Greek poetry. Together they have published articles on the new Archilochus fragment, Oedipus in the Odyssey and are in the midst of a long-term project on the use of Theban myths in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Barker and Christensen have published a Beginner’s Guide to Homer and plan to publish their second book (Homer’s Thebes) within the next few years. In conjunction with his teaching and research interests, Dr. Christensen also writes on myth and its relationship with literary representations: he has published on the Gilgamesh poems, Greek myth, and modern science fiction. In addition to being an active researcher, Dr. Christensen also has interests in New Media and conventional publications; he has recently started serving as the book review editor for The Classical Journal.

Selected Publications