Sunday, August 16, 2026
“The Odyssey” – Movie, Myth, Metaphor
Presented by David Fenimore

As our media feeds overflow with coverage of Christopher Nolan’s new film, countless critics, celebrities, politicians, and audience members are weighing in for and against his modern, CGI-driven, Game of Thrones-style adaptation of Homer’s poem.

But what is The Odyssey? What did this 3000-year-old heroic epic say to the ancient Greeks, to the later Romans, and to Western civilization in general? How has it shaped the ways we imagine gods, nature, and humanity, and how has it maintained its relevance to today’s world? As Penn professor Emily Wilson’s startling new translation makes clear, it’s above all a ripping good story, an oral performance piece meant to rock the house, and that’s where we’ll start.

For 35 years UUCSJS member David Fenimore taught literature and the humanities at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he assigned The Odyssey to students in his undergraduate “Ancient Cultures” course. He still remembers being a little boy eating Milk Duds at a Saturday matinee, watching Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn in the 1954 Italian sword-and-sandal film Ulysses.