University of Maryland Classics Department

For more Nolan Odyssey content, check out this editorial by UMD's own Polyvia Parara!

Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’: Reading Homer through the lens of Western modernity | eKathimerini.com As a cinematic achievement, the film is visually impressive. However, I believe that the director missed a unique opportunity to create an “Odyssey” worthy of Homer’s epic.

Curious about some of the major differences between Christopher Nolan's Odyssey and Homer's epic? Check out today's article in Maryland Today, featuring two of our very own faculty members:

Maryland Today | A Seriously Epic Journey to ‘The Odyssey’ Two classics professors and a Homer novice walk into a movie theater. Here are their takeaways.

We are so proud of our Class of '26 graduates! Congratulations and best of luck in all your future endeavors!

Congratulations to Charis Addai and Natalie Dean (pictured here with their proud advisors, Chiara Graf and Francisco Barrenechea) on defending their MA theses! Charis explored the role of internal audiences in Seneca's Phaedra, and Natalie illuminated the role of cannibalism in the Iliad. Well done both!

Join us next Friday, May 1st for a talk by Dr. Alexandra Leewon Schultz, entitled "Apollonius the Bookworm and the Libraries of Alexandria." Dr. Schultz is an Assistant Professor of Classics at Dartmouth College and a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies. Her research centers on Greek literature, as well as Greek and Roman cultural and intellectual history.

Her talk will take place at 4 PM on Friday, May 1st in Key Hall, Room 0117. An abstract for the talk is below:

Apollonius the Bookworm and the Libraries of Alexandria
Though scholars have long questioned received truths about the Library of Alexandria, the notion of a singular, universal library of Greek literature is alive and well today. Not only does this legendary collection play an outsized role in studies of Alexandrian literature and scholarship. The Library also undergirds scholarly work on the canonization of Greek literature and the origins of philology, and is thus central to how Classics as a discipline has been formed around 'the canon' and an invented genealogy that goes back to the Alexandrian poet-scholars. Instead of debunking the familiar sources for the Great Library, this talk offers a novel account of the history and historiography of other libraries in Ptolemaic Alexandria. By pluralizing the history of Alexandrian libraries and documenting the tradition of writing about the "libraries of Alexandria" from classical antiquity to the end of the 19th century, I open up new directions for studying this celebrated cosmopolis.

Please join us on Friday, April 17th for an exciting lecture by Dr. Daniel Kapust entitled "Lucretius and Rousseau on Compassion." This lecture is co-sponsored with  and open to the public.