Homeric Homesickness

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Location: 201 O'Shaughnessy Hall

The picture is of an old painting of Odysseus sitting on a rock, looking over the ocean towards his home. Calypso and Hermes talk under a tree in the background.
Image: Ditlev Blunck’s Odysseus on the Island of Calypso

The Notre Dame Department of Classics welcomes Dr. Alexander Loney to campus. He will be giving a talk in O'Shaughnessy Hall on Tuesday evening, November 5.

The desire to return home is a powerful but ambivalent motivation in Homeric poetry. This talk explores the benefits of homesickness and nostalgia, in Homer especially, while also revealing the dangers that come from losing this desire or giving over to an excess of it.

Alexander Loney is Associate Professor of Classical Languages at Wheaton College. His work focuses on archaic and classical Greek poetry, with particular attention to questions of ethics, temporality, and narrative. He also studies how early Christians received and responded to Greek myth and literature.