About Us

Classical Inquiries Dialogues

Classical Inquiries (CI) is an online, rapid-publication project of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, devoted to sharing some of the latest thinking on the ancient world with researchers and the general public.

Many of the studies published here will be incorporated into future CHS publications and learning modules. Thus, Classical Inquiries is a dynamic complement to the rich and evolving collection of publications available online through the CHS. As a rapid-publication project, it serves a critical function in the overall CHS strategy regarding integration of research, content & community development, and online publication.

The Classical Inquiries editorial team reserves the right to edit comments for spelling and grammar.

People

Keith DeStone

Keith DeStone is the primary editor of Classical Inquiries and co-editor of the CI Poetry Project. He is a Research Associate in Instructional Design, Comparative Study of Ancient Texts, and Research Publications at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies. He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 2013 with a dissertation titled “Singing Moses’s Song: A Performance-Critical Analysis of Deuteronomy’s Song of Moses,” which was published under the same title in 2016 by the Ilex Foundation. Within ancient Israelite literature, religion, and history, his research focuses on the dynamics of performing in traditional settings, particularly within traditions linked to founders. Among his secondary interests are Northwest Semitic languages and inscriptions, land ideology, and ancient Greek myth and hero cult. Professionally, his experience and goals include undergraduate education, educational technology development, instructional design, and language instruction.

Natasha Bershadsky

Natasha Bershadsky is a co-editor of the CI Poetry Project. She is a Lecturer on the Classics at Harvard University, and a Fellow in Poetry and in Ancient Greek History at the Center for Hellenic Studies. She received her PhD degree from the University of Chicago. Her book in preparation explores ritual and mythological aspects of long-running border conflicts in Archaic Greece and their creative transformations by the democracies of the Classical period. Her other project is an investigation of Hesiod’s hero cults, their connection to Hesiodic poetry and their political use in the Archaic and Classical periods. Her publications include “A Picnic, a Tomb and a Crow: Hesiod’s Cult in the Works and Days,” HSCP 106 (2011) 1–45, and “Impossible Memories of the Lelantine War,” Mètis 16 (2018), 191–213.

Jill Curry Robbins

Jill Curry Robbins is Manager for Print Publications at the Center for Hellenic Studies and periodically contributes to Classical Inquiries as an image consultant and image editor.

Noel Spencer

Noel Spencer is the web producer of Classical Inquiries. He is the Manager of Online Content and an Editorial Associate at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC. He holds an MEd from Auburn University, where he concentrated on language and literature for secondary students. As part of his commitment to open access, he works with humanities students to develop their technological skills so that they can aid in the creation of freely accessible scholarly resources.

Angelia Hanhardt

Angelia Hanhardt was Editorial Assistant at the Center for Hellenic Studies and an Assistant Editor for both Classical Inquiries and A Homer Commentary in Progress. She received her BA from Georgetown University in 2017, majoring in Classics and minoring in English and Sociology. At the Center, she worked with Leonard Mueller in overseeing the publication interns each summer and, more generally, in dedicating her time to expanding the accessibility of open access resources.

Claudia Filos

Claudia Filos was co-editor of Classical Inquiries from February 2015 through February 2017, while Manager for Curriculum and Community Development at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies. She holds an MA from Brandeis University, and her thesis is titled “Steadfast in a Multiform Tradition: ἔμπεδος and ἀσφαλής in Homer and Beyond.” Her teaching and research interests include Homer, oral traditions, Indo-European poetics, and the cult of saints in late antiquity. Through the study and creation of open access resources, she seeks to build community and to support engagement with ancient Greek poetry, in translation or in the original, outside the traditional university setting.

Gregory Nagy

Gregory Nagy was a frequent contributor to Classical Inquiries from February 2015 to October 2021. He is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His books include The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), which won the Goodwin Award of Merit, American Philological Association, in 1982; also Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Homeric Questions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), Homeric Responses (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003), Homer’s Text and Language (University of Illinois Press, 2004), Homer the Classic (Center for Hellenic Studies, online 2008, Harvard University Press, print 2009), Homer the Preclassic (Center for Hellenic Studies, online 2009, University of California Press, print 2010, paperback 2017), and The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (Harvard University Press, print 2013, paperback 2020, and Center for Hellenic Studies, epub 2013). He co-edited with Stephen A. Mitchell the 40th anniversary second edition of Albert Lord’s The Singer of Tales (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature vol. 24; Harvard University Press, 2000), co-authoring with Mitchell the new Introduction, pp. vii–xxix.