“The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey”

NOISY REALITY PRESENTS
Friday , August 28 ,
2026

12:00 PM
Eastern Standard Time

“The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey”

A conversation with
Professor Edith Hall

ZOOM Link for our discussion:

Invite Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86411768499?pwd=UitCdlJuWFR2QkZZTDVOQ2w0anVZUT09

ALL ARE WELCOME !!!!

In January 2022 Edith Hall was appointed to a Professorship in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University in the North-East of England, but travels across Britain and the world to speak about the ancient world to schools, universities, theatre companies, public events and the media.

Her specialism is ancient Greek literature, but she enjoys putting the pleasure as well as the rigour into all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman history, society, and thought.
Her current research investigates ecological issues in ancient myth, epic and drama, Aristotle’s presences beyond the Academy, Aristotle’s writing styles, the afterlives of women in the Aeneid and Classics and Social Class in the North-East of England.
Edith has now published more than thirty books, broadcasts frequently on radio and television, works as consultant with professional theatres, lectures all over the world, and publishes widely in academic and mainstream journals and newspapers.
She is a world leader in the study of ethnicity, class and gender in ancient sources, of ancient theatre, and of the instrumentality of ancient ideas in world culture since the Renaissance.
Her current research investigates ecological issues in ancient myth, epic and drama, Aristotle’s presences beyond the Academy, Aristotle’s writing styles, the afterlives of women in the Aeneid and Classics and Social Class in the North-East of England.
Edith has now published more than thirty books, broadcasts frequently on radio and television, works as consultant with professional theatres, lectures all over the world, and publishes widely in academic and mainstream journals and newspapers.
She is a world leader in the study of ethnicity, class and gender in ancient sources, of ancient theatre, and of the instrumentality of ancient ideas in world culture since the Renaissance.
She has supervised more than thirty-five PhD students on topics across her research interests and welcomes expressions of interest from potential applicants from a wide range of academic backgrounds.
Edith has held posts at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, Reading and Royal Holloway, and visiting positions at Notre Dame, Swarthmore, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Leiden, and Erfurt.
On 22nd April 2023 Edith was delighted to be awarded the Classical Association Prize. Professor Tim Whitmarsh, Regius Chair of Greek at Cambridge, said at the ceremony that her ‘energy and determination to promote the study of the ancient world is unfailing. Her academic interests range widely from Greek theatre to Aristotle, ancient slavery to women classicists, but the one constant throughout her career, underpinning everything she does, is a commitment to making classics more accessible and inclusive’.

Here is a sample of her publications:

2025 Epic of the Earth: Reading Homer’s Iliad in the Fight for a Dying World. Yale U.P.
2025 A Very Short Introduction to Sophocles. Oxford: O.U.P.
2025 Classical Civilisation and Ancient History in British Secondary Education (co-authored
with Arlene Holmes-Henderson). Liverpool UP.
2024 Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, edited with Translation, Introduction and Commentary. Aris &
Phillips.
2024 Facing down the Furies: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me. Yale University Press.
2021 Tony Harrison: Poet of Radical Classicism. Bloomsbury.
2020 A People’s History of Classics: Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity. Routledge Taylor
Francis. Co-authored with Henry Stead.
2018 Aristotle’s Way. Penguin/Random House. Much translated.
2014 Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western
Mind. Norton/Bodley Head. Much translated.
2013 Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris: A Cultural History of Euripides’ Black Sea Tragedy.
OUP.
2010 Greek Tragedy: Suffering under the Sun. OUP.
2008 The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey. IB Tauris & Johns
Hopkins UP.
2006 The Theatrical Cast of Athens: Interactions between Ancient Greek Drama & Society.
OUP.
2005 *Greek Tragedy & the British Theatre 1660-*1914. With Fiona Macintosh. OUP.
1996 Aeschylus’ Persians, ed. with Introduction, Translation & Commentary. Aris & Phillips/
Oxbow.
1989 Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy. OUP.