Publication cultures in academia are as diverse as their underlying research cultures. In today’s often normative discourse on Open Access, there is a danger that this diversity will be neglected or even lost in the medium term in favor of techno-solutionist implementations. In the following, I will therefore take a closer look at the approach of…[Read more]

Publication cultures in academia are as diverse as their underlying research cultures. In today’s often normative discourse on Open Access, there is a danger that this diversity will be neglected or even lost in the medium term in favor of techno-solutionist implementations. In the following, I will therefore take a closer look at the approach of…[Read more]

Publication cultures in academia are as diverse as their underlying research cultures. In today’s often normative discourse on Open Access, there is a danger that this diversity will be neglected or even lost in the medium term in favor of techno-solutionist implementations. In the following, I will therefore take a closer look at the approach of…[Read more]

London Bridge is down * QRt by PRURITUS MIGRANS * CC: BY-NC-SA

In this paper, I argue that the traditional narrative of Iphigenia’s sacrifice lies allusively behind the opening scenes of the Iliad (1.8–487). Scholars have long suspected that this episode is evoked in Agamemnon’s scathing rebuke of Calchas (1.105–8), but I contend that this is only one moment in a far more sustained allusive dialogue: both th…[Read more]

Hellenistic literature and art commemorated victories over the Galatians through a variety of analogies and allegories, ranging from the historical Persian Wars to the cosmic Gigantomachy: each individual victory was incorporated into a larger sequence in which order constantly quelled the forces of chaos. This paper explores this analogical…[Read more]

Archaic Greek epic exhibits a pervasive eristic intertextuality, repeatedly positioning its heroes and itself against pre-existing traditions. Here I focus on a specific case study from the Odyssey: Homer’s agonistic relationship with the Catalogue of Women tradition. Hesiodic-style Catalogue poetry has long been recognized as an important i…[Read more]

In this note, I highlight a hitherto unrecognized literary resonance in the climactic final verses of Archilochus’ First Cologne Epode: Archilochus parodically and subversively reworks the Homeric description of a quivering spear. This Homeric resonance caps the poem’s ongoing clash between the generic conventions of epic and iambus, while also…[Read more]

In this paper, I investigate the repetition of Homeric hapax legomena in archaic and classical Greek poetry. Scholars frequently assume that fine-grained engagement with Homeric rarities is a distinctive feature of the Hellenistic period, but I reveal the significant precedent for this phenomenon in earlier poetry. Proceeding through comedy,…[Read more]

This paper seeks to shed fresh light on the aesthetic and stylistic affiliations of Lycophron’s Alexandra, approaching the poem from two distinct but complementary angles. First, it explores what can be gained by reading Lycophron’s poem against the backdrop of Callimachus’ poetry. It contends that the Alexandra presents a radical and polem…[Read more]

In this paper, I investigate how Ptolemaic poets’ presentation of their queens compares with and relates to the practice of their major rivals, the Seleucids. No poetic celebration of a Seleucid queen survives extant, but an anecdote preserved by Lucian sheds intriguing light on Seleucid poetic practice (Pro Imaginibus 5): queen Stratonice, bald…[Read more]

In this article for sixth-formers and school teachers, I explore the story of Achilles’ heel and Homer’s likely suppression of the myth in the Iliad. Homer’s Iliad appears to acknowledge, but simultaneously reject, an alternative tradition in which Achilles was more than mortal, part of a broader downplaying of heroic invulnerability and…[Read more]

An example of the brass bands established by various children’s homes, orphanages and similar institutions, around the world in the early 20th century. This French orphanage fanfare band was founded on charitable principles, to give the children musical training and discipline, and to help raise funds for the home.