Part I
The Iliad
October 7–28 · Four meetings
$300
Enroll in the IliadThe Cost of GloryReading the Iliad and the Odyssey
Wednesdays, October 7–December 2, 2026
12–1:30 p.m. Pacific
Eight meetings. No class November 25.
Join live or watch the recordings on your own schedule.
Includes lectures, close reading, optional live discussion, reading packets, and access to lecture recordings. Either part may be taken on its own.
About the course
What makes glory worth pursuing, and what does it ask people to give up? Across eight meetings, we will read Homer’s two poems together, following the claims of honor, love, and grief from the battlefield into the household. Each poem has its own questions. Reading them beside one another lets us hear those questions differently.
Part I: Reading Homer’s Iliad
Glory promises that a name will survive the person who bears it. What can that promise offer someone who still wants to live?
We will read the Iliad through Achilles’ anger, the demands of honor and friendship, and the lives caught in the war around Troy. The poem gives heroic excellence extraordinary beauty. It also asks us to stay with the grief of those who survive it. Through carefully chosen passages, we will attend to both, including the moments when an enemy becomes someone whose suffering can be understood.
Part II: Reading Homer’s Odyssey
Odysseus survives Troy. What sort of life can he make afterward?
We will approach the Odyssey through the habits and values a warrior carries home, asking what becomes of cunning, courage, and the pursuit of glory within a marriage, a household, and a community. Alongside its losses and violence, we will make room for the poem’s humor, strangeness, and pleasure in invention.
Comparisons with Achilles, Hector, and Andromache will help us see Odysseus and Penelope afresh. Some scenes may be familiar to readers who joined The Long Way Home; here, they enter a sustained conversation with the Iliad. Part I is not required. I’ll provide the context you need.
Reading and participation
Weekly packets offer a full reading route and a shorter route through selected passages. Either is enough for class. No previous experience with Homer is needed, and nothing needs to be submitted.
Each meeting includes a lecture, a short break, and optional discussion. Only the lecture is recorded. You can follow the course entirely through the recordings.