Professor Erynn Kim of the Department of Classics has been selected as a Fellow in Hellenic Studies at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) and as a recipient of Harvard's Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship for the 2026-27 academic year.
The Center for Hellenic Studies residential fellowship fosters interaction among a diverse, international body of scholars to encourage high-quality research on topics related to ancient Greece. The Loeb Classical Library Foundation awards fellowships to support projects in classical studies. Professor Kim will hold her CHS residency in Fall 2026 and will use both fellowships to complete her monograph, entitled The Poetics of Vividness: Dreams and Similes in Gilgamesh and Homer.
Using the theoretical frameworks of narratology and cognitive studies, this book argues that the perceived vividness of Gilgamesh and the Homeric epics emerges not only from ekphrastic or immersive passages, as recent studies suggest, but also from dreams and similes, which interrupt the primary narrative. Comparing the dreams in Gilgamesh with Homeric similes, rather than “like” with “like,” this study focuses on poetics to advance ongoing efforts to define what constitutes a parallel and what distinguishes an “epic.” This project breaks new ground by arguing that the Greek and Babylonian traditions not only exhibit shared formal features of the epic genre but, significantly, converge in the way they engage their audiences in the storytelling process.
This book aims to invigorate scholarly discussions by facilitating interdisciplinary conversations across Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and Comparative Literature. Through her research, Professor Kim hopes to deepen our appreciation of the ancient world by drawing Classics into conversation with texts which, despite lying outside of the Greco-Roman canon, have contributed to shaping key works within it.