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X-WR-CALNAME:Prof. Daniel Turkeltaub: "Homer’s Slippery Songs: Odysseus
 ’s Mighty Hand and the Fall of Glorious Ajax"
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Pacific Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260519T004053Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_50828835779954
DTSTART:20251016T190000Z
DTEND:20251016T200000Z
DESCRIPTION:Join us on October 16th\, 2025\, for a presentation by Prof. Da
 niel Turkeltaub on Homer’s Slippery Songs: Odysseus’s Mighty Hand and 
 the Fall of Glorious Ajax. \n\n \n\nThe Iliad and Odyssey contain phrases 
 that just don’t fit their contexts. Scholars used to say Homer nodded of
 f when composing such passages\, but the discovery that the Homeric epics 
 are oral compositions offers more productive possibilities than the poet
 ’s somnolence. Like phrases in a natural language\, formulaic phrases in
  Homeric poetry can convey idiomatic meanings that we lose when we read th
 e poems as written texts. In this talk\, we will examine two passages cont
 aining ludicrously inappropriate formulas: an instance of “glorious Ajax
 ” (φαίδιμος Αἴας) in the Iliad and “with a stout hand” 
 (χειρὶ παχείῃ) in the Odyssey. Viewing the two passages in li
 ght of each formula’s idiomatic significance will reveal how Homer’s s
 ongs create meaning that we often miss today and how the two epics use hum
 or differently to reverberate their deeper thematic concerns.   All are we
 lcome!\n\n \n\n \n\nDaniel Turkeltaub is an Associate Professor of Classic
 s at Santa Clara University. He is a classical philologist whose teaching 
 and research focus on Greek epic\, comedy\, and tragedy. He has published 
 articles about Euripides’ Hecuba\, humor in the Odyssey\, and how formul
 aic composition contributes to thematic development in Homeric poetry. Sel
 ect publications include “Perceiving Iliadic Gods\,” “Penelope’s 
 ‘Stout Hand’ and Odyssean Humor\,” and “Reading the Epic Past: The
  Iliad on Heroic Epic.” He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University a fe
 w years after earning his A.B. from Princeton University.
GEO:33.967386;-118.422408
LOCATION:McIntosh Center\, University Hall 3999
SUMMARY:Prof. Daniel Turkeltaub: "Homer’s Slippery Songs: Odysseus’s Mi
 ghty Hand and the Fall of Glorious Ajax"
URL;VALUE=URI:https://cal.lmu.edu/event/prof-daniel-turkeltaub-homers-slipp
 ery-songs-odysseuss-mighty-hand-and-the-fall-of-glorious-ajax
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR