We are pleased to welcome Nancy Felson, Laura Slatkin, and Maša Ćulumović, who joined us on Wednesday, May 9 at 11:00 a.m. EDT for a discussion of exchanges in the underworld from the Odyssey. To prepare for the event, you might like to read the passages in the handout provided. Read more
Gregory Nagy,Douglas Frame, and Leonard Muellner, read, translate, and discuss Odyssey 1.149–154 in the original Greek in the most accessible way. Topics include word choices, effects of the particles, the figure of the poet Phemios, and shifting visualizations of stringed instruments in Homer. Read more
"I want to focus on Odysseus’s nostos as taking place in a wholly imaginary world. For however deep the roots of Greek nostos in Indo-European myth, the Odyssey stands out in making Odysseus’s return an exclusively imaginary voyage." We are grateful to the Center for Odyssean Studies for permission to share Douglas Frame's paper "From Scheria to Ithaca." Read more
We were pleased to welcome Justin Arft, University of Tennessee, for an Open House discussion entitled "A Cyclic Odysseus is a Dead Odysseus: Homer and the Epic Cycle on (Mis)Recognition." It took place on Thursday, November 16, at 11:00 a.m. EST, and was recorded. In preparation you might like to read the following focus passages from the Odyssey. Read more
Anger [mēnis], goddess, sing it, of Achilles, son of Peleus— disastrous [oulomenē] anger that made countless pains [algea] for the Achaeans, and many steadfast lives [psūkhai] it drove down to Hādēs, heroes’ lives, but their bodies it made prizes for dogs [kuōn, pl.] and for all birds, and the Will of Zeus was reaching its fulfillment [telos]. In this very familiar passage at the start of the Iliad we see… Read more
