Making Myths, Making Signs

Featured Online Publications

Olga Levaniouk
Eve of the Festival: Mythmaking in Odyssey 19
Eve of the Festival is a study of Homeric myth-making in the first and longest dialogue of Penelope and Odysseus (Odyssey 19). This study makes a case for seeing virtuoso myth-making as an essential part of this conversation, a register of communication important for the interaction between the two speakers. At the core of the book is a detailed examination of several myths in the dialogue in an attempt to understand what is being said and how. The dialogue as a whole is interpreted as an exchange of performances that have the eve of Apollo’s festival as their occasion and that amount to activating, and even enacting, the myth corresponding within the Odyssey to the ritual event of the festival.

Also in Online Publications

• Alexander Hollmann, The master of signs : signs and the interpretation of signs in Herodotus’ Histories
• Corinne Pache, “Dream Maker and Heart Breaker” – Engendering Epic in Kings and Queen
• Philostratus, Philostratus, On Heroes, (translated by Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean)

Homer Multitext Project

The Homer Multitext project, the first of its kind in Homeric studies, presents the textual transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey in a historical framework. It offers free access to a library of texts and images, a machine-interface to that library and its indices, and tools to allow readers to discover and engage with the Homeric tradition.
At the recent 2013 MHT Seminar, new undergraduate teams received intensive training on the techniques and technology used when publishing a scholarly, diplomatic edition of manuscripts such as the Venetus A. Thanks to the dedication of all involved, teams were able to contribute to the project immediately by working through folios with text and notes from Book 10 of the Iliad. To learn more, read “Wake up! A return to Iliad 10 and the poetics of the night” by Casey Dué.

“The Ancient Greek Hero” at edX

The Ancient Greek Hero is an online educational project created by Gregory Nagy (Harvard University) and offered by edX/HarvardX. While many MOOCs focus on lecture capture and certificates, this project seeks to integrate community and content around the figure of the ancient Greek hero, a subject that Nagy has been researching and teaching at Harvard for almost four decades. Through the HarvardX project Nagy and his team foster a global and ongoing dialogue where participants can engage with ancient readings and with each other in a meaningful way. It offers access to world-class content including specially prepared primary texts, secondary texts, videos dialogue, audio downloads, images and more–all free, and all designed to be equally accessible and transformative for a wide audience.
Since the project was launched in March 2013, The Ancient Greek Hero has enrolled over 36,000 participants from over 170 countries. Participants in the inaugural session completed the challenging material at promising rates. More importantly, participants describe being transformed by the content, the community, and the rare experience of “reading closely”.
Registration is now open for the second session, which begins on September 3rd.
Sample the Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours by watching a 10-minute video dialogue about the passage below.

Hour 11 Text M: A mystical vision of the tomb of Odysseus

|14 We heaped up a tomb [tumbos] for him, and then, erecting as a column on top, |15 we stuck his well-made oar into the very top of the tomb [tumbos]. Odyssey xii 14-15

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