Just before leaving Columbus in summer 2014 to spend a sabbatical year in Madrid, along with my partner, Rebeka, and our son, Eneko, I discovered that the french filmmaker Chris Marker contributed photographs to a little book on Homer, published in 1958 by Paris-based Éditions du Seuil (where Marker worked between 1954-8), as part of […]
Constantine Cavafy’s famous poem Ithaka transforms the singular event of Odysseus’ nostos to his home on the rugged island of Ithaka into a symbolic, repeatable experience epitomized by understanding what ‘Ithakas’ plural mean. Here is the final two stanzas of the poem: Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn’t have set out. […]
In my Classics 2220H: Classical Mythology/Contemporary Art class last week, each of the students delivered presentations that connected their exploration of myths of creation, love and art with individual art works from the exhibition Open This End: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Blake Byrne at the OSU Urban Arts Space here in Columbus. Leaving […]
Jeff Koons Popeye, 2003 Then I made me way into the tottering house itself and found it all in shambles. A clothesline freighted with frilly red underwear, not mine, and three pairs of long johns, not mine, stretched across the living room. The bathroom reeked of men’s after-shave and colognes – Brute – and was […]
SapphoMartialPublilius SyrusAristotleEuripides[EuripidesThe Trojan Women]Seneca’s Thyestes DiogenesVirgilAeneid Benjamin Jowett[Ovid Amores 1. 8. 40?]Plutarch re CaesarSophoclesAristotle (again)SimonidesSpartansSlain atPlateaLucretius wroteBeing Euripides (again)Being Seneca (again?)[Horace Odes 4. 7 16] Quoth HoraceOdysseus once says Asks someone in Aristophanes
Selection of Donald Judd’s Loeb Classical Library in his library The online Faculty Bookshelf is becoming a common feature of university department websites, and Classics is no exception. These virtual bookshelves vary in how they create (or should I say, curate) an image of the collective intellectual achievements of the Faculty, ranging from the glamorous […]
Ulysses turned his back on the harbour and followed a rough track leading through the woods and up to the hills towards the place where Athena had told him. A group of men were idling around an oil barrel in which a fire was burning. He muttered a greeting and stood for a moment with […]
I am writing this from Madrid, in our tiny flat in Calle Olivar, our new home for the next year. As you would expect, I have spent the first week here exploring the wonders of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. In my three visits so far, two were centered on Picasso’s Guernica. […]
Eleanor Antin Constructing Helen, 2007 (from Helen’s Odyssey) In looking for exhibitions to visit during my upcoming trip to Los Angeles, I will just miss Eleanor Antin: Passengers at Diane Rosenstein Fine Art by one day. I am especially disappointed that I will not get a chance to see her amazing photograph Constructing Helen (above) […]