Sunday, March 8, 2026

Blemished Kings: Suitors in the Odyssey, Blame Poetics, and Irish Satire

Blemished Kings: Suitors in the Odyssey, Blame Poetics, and Irish Satire
Andrea Kouklanakis
  
Hellenic Studies Series

Each of the suitors in the Odyssey is eager to become the king of Ithaca by marrying Penelope and disqualifying Telemachus from his rightful royal inheritance. Their words are contentious, censorious, and intent on marking Odysseus’ son as unfit for kingship. However, in keeping with other reversals in the Odyssey, it is the suitors who are shown to be unfit to rule.

In Blemished Kings, Andrea Kouklanakis interprets the language of the suitors—their fighting words—as Homeric expressions of reproach and critique against unsuitable kings. She suggests that the suitors’ disparaging expressions, and the refutations they provoke from Telemachus and from Odysseus himself, rest on the ideology whereby a blemished king cannot rule. Therefore, the suitors vehemently reject Telemachus’ suggestion that they are to be blamed. She shows that in the Odyssey there is linguistic and semantic evidence for the concept that blame poetry can physically blemish, hence disqualify, rulers. In her comparative approach, Kouklanakis looks towards the regulatory role of satire in early Irish law and myth, particularly the taboo against a blemished-face king, offering thereby a socio-poetic context for the suitors’ struggles for kingship

Available for purchase in print via Harvard University Press.

Kouklanakis, Andrea. 2023. Blemished Kings Suitors in the Odyssey, Blame Poetics, and Irish Satire. Hellenic Series Studies 98. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_KouklanakisA_Blemished_Kings.2023.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License.

  


 

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Open Access Journal: Everyday Orientalism

[First posted in AWOL 22 March 2024, updated 8 Marc h 2026] 
 
ISSN: 2635-215X

The concept of Orientalism was developed by the literary scholar Edward Said who, in his seminal work Orientalism (1978), defined it as “the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient – dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it : in short, Orientalism [is] a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient”. Everyday Orientalism is a platform through which students, academics, and citizens can reflect on how history and power shape the way in which human societies define themselves through the “Other”. As such, we understand Said’s concept in its broader sense, that is as an analytical paradigm that can be applied to many contexts beyond the 19th century “Orient”.

We are open to guest posts in a variety of formats and languages (including, but not limited to, English, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, and German). All posts and events are refereed and unanimously approved by EO’s editorial team.

Editorial team

Co-founder and lead editor: Katherine Blouin (@isisnaucratis), Associate Professor of Roman History, University of Toronto. You can also read her here and here

Co-founder and co-editor: Usama Ali Gad (@usamaligad), Lecturer of Papyrology, Greco-Roman History and Civilization, Ain Shams University. You can also read him here. On leave as of July 2023.

Co-founder and co-editor: Rachel Mairs, Professor of Classics and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Reading. You can also read her here and here.

And See AWOL's full List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

 

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Scythica Minora. Recherches sur les colonies grecques du littoral roumain de la mer Noire

Publié le 5 mars 2026 par Th. Castelli

Pippidi, D. M. (1975) : Scythica Minora. Recherches sur les colonies grecques du littoral roumain de la mer Noire, Bucarest

L’ouvrage rassemble 25 articles de l’auteur sur l’ouest de la mer Noire qui s’appuient sur l’épigraphie pour reconstituer l’histoire de la région de l’époque classique à l’Antiquité tardive. Des index rendent la circulation dans l’ouvrage aisée.

À la fin du volume, on trouve la liste des références originelles des articles ainsi que les illustrations.

Tous les articles sont en français.

L’ouvrage en ligne : https://biblioteca-digitala.ro/?pub=9927-scythica-minora-recherches-sur-les-colonies-grecques-du-littoral-roumain-de-la-mer-noire

 

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Open Access Journal: Arys: Antigüedad, Religiones y Sociedades

[First posted in AWOL 2 October 2011. Updates 8 March 2026]


ARYS: Antigüedad, Religiones y Sociedades
ISSN1575-166X:
EISSN 2173-6847












 

Revista de la Asociación ARYS: Antigüedad, Religiones y Sociedades. Con periodicidad anual, ARYS publica trabajos de investigación sobre la interacción entre la religión y la sociedad en el mundo antiguo.

Current  

No. 23 (2025)

Full Issue

Postumus

Monographic

Dialogues on Archaeology and the History of Religions

Reviews

Reviewers

 

 Archivos


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Le temple de Dendara X. Les chapelles osiriennes: Planches en couleur

Sylvie Cauville, Oussama Bassiouni, Matjaž Kačičnik, Bernard Lenthéric
Vignette

Le temple d'Hathor à Dendera, admirablement conservé, est probablement la plus aboutie des réalisations architecturales de l'Égypte ptolémaïque et romaine et la richesse des compositions théologiques qui ornent ses murs est incomparable. Ses inscriptions hiéroglyphiques ont été éditées sous l’égide de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale, d’abord par É. Chassinat puis par Fr. Daumas, et enfin par S. Cauville. Le dixième volume, paru en deux tomes en 1997, offre la publication des inscriptions, avec photos et dessins, du complexe osirien situé sur le toit du temple et composé de six chapelles, ornées notamment du fameux zodiaque et du grand texte des mystères de Khoiak.

Le présent opus présente l'intégralité des planches de Dendara X, mais en couleur, après la restauration du temple et sa nouvelle couverture photographique.  

IF1414
ISBN 9782724711615
2026 IFAO
Collection: Temples Dendara 10.1
Langue(s): français
1 vol. 572 p.
gratuit - free of charge 

 

 
 

 

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Saturday, March 7, 2026

The Theology of Arithmetic: Number Symbolism in Platonism and Early Christianity

  

In the second century, Valentinians and other gnosticizing Christians used numerical structures and symbols to describe God, interpret the Bible, and frame the universe. In this study of the controversy that resulted, Joel Kalvesmaki shows how earlier neo-Pythagorean and Platonist number symbolism provided the impetus for this theology of arithmetic, and describes the ways in which gnosticizing groups attempted to engage both the Platonist and Christian traditions. He explores the rich variety of number symbolism then in use, among both gnosticizing groups and their orthodox critics, demonstrating how those critics developed an alternative approach to number symbolism that would set the pattern for centuries to come. Arguing that the early dispute influenced the very tradition that inspired it, Kalvesmaki explains how, in the late third and early fourth centuries, numbers became increasingly important to Platonists, who engaged in arithmological constructions and disputes that mirrored the earlier Christian ones

Available for purchase in print via Harvard University Press.

Kalvesmaki, Joel. 2013. The Theology of Arithmetic: Number Symbolism in Platonism and Early Christianity. Hellenic Studies Series 59. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_KalvesmakiJ.The_Theology_of_Arithmetic.2013.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License.

  
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Africa: Greek and Roman Perspectives from Homer to Apuleius

  

A sourcebook of selected excerpts used in conjunction with the Montclaire State University course, Africa in Classical Antiquity (HUMN 381). Made available here by permission of the author.

Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_JonesP.Africa.2016.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License.

  
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