Compared to Homer’s Iliad, the Odyssey appears to be set in a world at peace. But despite the epic taking place far from the Trojan battlefield, violence still plays an important role.

With headlines again filled with stories of immigrant abuse and immigration in the United States, it is worth taking a look back at one of the most famous “foreigners” from the ancient world: Odysseus.

Odysseus’ performs many ill-deeds on his twenty-year journey from Ithaca to Troy and back again. In the modern world, we are often enraptured by the details of his journey, but we can also be deeply ambivalent about the complicated man himself.

A scene on an amphora from Eleusis, near Athens, is the earliest representation of the blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus and his men.

While modern audiences tend to be sympathetic towards the trickster hero Odysseus, the leading character of the epic poem that is named after him, a closer look reveals him to be a terrible person.

Sitcom Red Dwarf turns thirty this year. While it hasn’t always been the most highbrow of entertainment, it contains a number of jokes and references to ancient history – particularly the Trojan War.

Some material in a doctoral thesis never makes the final cut, but can instead be turned into articles. An example is a peer-reviewed article that I wrote about romantic love in the Homeric epics.

American heavy metal band Symphony X wrote an epic song inspired by the Homer’s The Odyssey.

How do the worlds created by Homer in his epic poems relate to historical and archaeological realities? Do they relate to any particular periods of history at all?

Can the Homeric epics be considered historical documents to some extent? If so, for which time period can they be used?