Classical Studies

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Professor James Romm’s Translation of Greek Fragments Reviewed in the Epoch Times

A new book by James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics and Director of the Classics Program James Romm, Since You're Mortal . . . : Life Lessons From the Lost Greek Plays, was reviewed in the Epoch Times. Romm’s book, which was reviewed earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal, translates fragments from ancient Greek literature and sorts them into themes about life lessons on love, politics, and more. These fragments come from the writings of Stobaeus, a fifth-century man who compiled lines from Classical writing to instruct his son; Romm’s translation is the first time they have been translated into English. “There is hardly anything more powerful or more beautiful than a great line,” writes Dustin Bass for the Epoch Times. “Romm’s new book gifts the reader these textual forms in all their beauty and wisdom.”

Romm, whose previous books have been reviewed in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, also recently reviewed Alexander: God, King, Man by Edmund Richardson for the Times Literary Supplement. He teaches in Bard’s Classical Studies Program, which seeks to understand the languages, literatures, histories, and visual and material cultures of the premodern Mediterranean world. The program approaches these ancient societies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including linguistics, art history, archaeology, anthropology, and philosophy, while also considering the long and complex legacies of ancient Greece and Rome in art, language, politics, and culture from antiquity to the present day.

Post Date: 08-26-2026

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Professor Daniel Mendelsohn Reflects On The Odyssey in Several Publications

Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities Daniel Mendelsohn, who published a translation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey in 2025, was interviewed by Fareed Zakaria of CNN about the lasting impact of The Odyssey on the occasion of Christopher Nolan’s new movie adapting the poem. He also wrote two opinion pieces about the movie, one for the New York Review of Books about Nolan’s interpretation of Homer’s narrative, and one for the New York Times refuting the idea that the movie is historically inaccurate because of its casting. “[Nolan] is using Helen just as the Greek authors did: to provoke, challenge and discomfit how we think about beauty and identity, about who we are and how we relate to our world,” he writes for the New York Times. Speaking to Zakaria, Mendelsohn said, “Of the two Homeric poems, The Odyssey is the one we can’t let go of. It’s a story that continues to speak to the way we live. [It’s] a modern dilemma: how do you balance home and adventure?”

Bard’s Classical Studies Program seeks to understand the languages, literatures, histories, and visual and material cultures of the premodern Mediterranean world. The program approaches these ancient societies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including linguistics, art history, archaeology, anthropology, and philosophy, while also considering the long and complex legacies of ancient Greece and Rome in art, language, politics, and culture from antiquity to the present day.
Watch the CNN Interview Read in the New York Times Read in the NYRB

Post Date: 07-22-2026