In Medias Res
The Odyssey’s Victims
A college acquaintance of mine, and a trainee officer in the army, once told me he had always found something ideologically suspicious about The Odyssey. Why on earth would you glorify a hero who leaves for a war with…
The Odyssey’s Victims
Mark Buchan | October 8, 2026
A college acquaintance of mine, and a trainee officer in the army, once told me he had always found something ideologically suspicious about The Odyssey. Why on earth would you glorify a hero who leaves for a war with…
Meet Paideia’s 2026 Summer Teaching Literacy with Latin Grant Recipients
Aminata Hughes | September 25, 2026
As we look back on the summer, Paideia’s Outreach team is excited to share a few standout stories from this year’s Teaching Literacy with Latin summer camp cohort!
The Newest Ancient Greek
Michael McOsker | September 17, 2026
“The Spanish-American War looked nearly over, the Dreyfus case had taken another turn, the Prince of Wales’s knee had been treated with ‘the X rays’, Rugby and Marlborough had drawn at Lord’s. The Times of 29 July 1898…
Winning the Homecoming, Losing the War: On Nolan’s Odyssey
Mark Buchan | September 11, 2026
The funniest moment in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is central to his entire artistic endeavor. Odysseus and his men have entered the cave of the Cyclops, helped themselves to his cheese, and thus already flaunted…
Nolan’s – not Homer’s – Odyssey
Paul Cartledge | September 1, 2026
The (large) size of the Paideia Odyssey movie Roundtable audience and the (long) series of comments/suggestions/queries in the Chat tell their own tale: Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey movie is hot box office. But does it…
Pius Odysseus
Joy Connolly | August 21, 2026
Who can complain about a summer blockbuster that brings Homer to theaters drowning in infantile schlock? If Christopher Nolan convinces people that time with the Odyssey is time well spent, I’m glad and grateful. Good…
Are There Really Monsters in the Odyssey?
Mark Buchan | August 13, 2026
The Odyssey, so everyone tells us, is full of monsters. But what if it’s not that simple? As a test case, I will take a close look at one of the poem’s most spectacular monsters, the Skylla, not any old monster, but, in…
The Odyssey Naked
Mark Buchan | August 6, 2026
When I first encountered Mike Leigh’s film Naked , which reimagines The Odyssey as the wanderings of a brilliant, terrifying, working-class, near-tramp Northerner called Johnny, traveling aimlessly alone through central…
The Return of the Smiting King
John Byron Kuhner | August 4, 2026
Understanding the Structure of the Odyssey
Cather’s O Pioneers and Penelope
Kirk Ormand | July 23, 2026
A different version of the heroic narrative.
Fatal Second Helen: A Modern Veteran’s Iliad
Joshua Cannon | July 21, 2026
Excerpts from an Iraq War veteran's retelling of Homer.
A Boy's Own Odyssey
Paul Cartledge | July 18, 2026
Husteron proteron homērikōs – ‘the later the earlier in the manner of Homer’. So wrote Cicero in a letter to his friend and publisher, Titus Pomponius surnamed Atticus (the Athenian). So write I now, in response to the…