Classical Inquiries

Honoring Zoie Lafis: a brief encomium from Greg

2021.09.19 | By Gregory Nagy §0. This all-too-brief encomium is meant to honor Zoie Lafis, Executive Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, with whom I worked for 21 years in my role as Director of CHS, from the beginning of July 2000 to the end of June 2021, and in my earlier role as Senior Fellow of the CHS, from 1997 to 2000. During all those years, “Zoie and… Read more

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By Gregory Nagy

Honoring Angelia Hanhardt: a brief encomium for Lia from her admiring colleague Greg

2021.09.13 | By Gregory Nagy §0. The date of this posting, 13 September 2021, marks the last day that Angelia Hanhardt works for the Center for Hellenic Studies. Every Monday, for the longest time, this treasured young colleague of mine has been editing my weekly essays submitted to Classical Inquiries in her capacity as Assistant Editor of C.I. In my case, I have usually succeeded in submitting my own weekly… Read more

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Guest Post

Thoughts on Classical Studies in the 21st Century United States

Abstract: This paper consists of three complementary parts. The first section describes three instances where very technical scholarship on Greek literature overlaps with, and draws attention to, particularly dramatic historical contexts. This section describes an aspect of Greco-Roman studies that is both too demanding and too narrow — too demanding because it assumes that anglophone researchers work with scholarship in languages such as French, German, and Italian, but too narrow… Read more

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By Gregory Nagy

Trying to read Sappho out loud without running out of breath

2021.09.07 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In the classical Athenian vase painting that I have chosen as the lead-off illustration for my essay here, the painter has pictured a woman, seated, reading out loud. Her mouth is part-open, and her lips are moving, it seems. She is reading from a scroll of papyrus—sometimes called a roll—and the painter has fancifully indicated, with stylized dots, the lines of the song that… Read more

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By Gregory Nagy

A question of “reception”: how could Homer ever outlive his own moments of performance?

2021.08.30 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In the cover illustration for this essay, a painter is picturing Homer at a moment of performance. Or, I could even say that we see Homer here in—not just at—a moment of performance. Homer sings, accompanying himself on his lyre. Viewing him and listening to him most attentively, in the imagination of our painter, are poets from Homer’s future “reception.” Most visible is old… Read more

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By Gregory Nagy

Jaufré Rudel, his ‘distant love’, and the death of the distant lover in his vida

2021.08.23 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In the medieval textual tradition recording the songs of a troubadour named Jaufré Rudel, who dates back to the 12th century BCE, we read references in his Song 5 to ‘a distant love’, un amor de loing, experienced by the poet in the melancholy… Read more

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About Us

Bibliographies

The CI Poetry Project

Studies on the Ancient World from the Center for Hellenic Studies

Honoring Zoie Lafis: a brief encomium from Greg

Honoring Angelia Hanhardt: a brief encomium for Lia from her admiring colleague Greg

Thoughts on Classical Studies in the 21st Century United States

Trying to read Sappho out loud without running out of breath

A question of “reception”: how could Homer ever outlive his own moments of performance?

Jaufré Rudel, his ‘distant love’, and the death of the distant lover in his vida

Featured Publications at the Center for Hellenic Studies

Equine Poetics

The Tears of Achilles

Achilles Unbound: Multiformity and Tradition in the Homeric Epics

Homeric Imagery and the Natural Environment

The Cypria

Homer’s Thebes: Epic Rivalries and the Appropriation of Mythical Pasts

One Man Show: Poetics and Presence in the Iliad and Odyssey

Agamemnon, the Pathetic Despot: Reading Characterization in Homer

Who Am I? (Mis)Identity and the Polis in Oedipus Tyrannus