Given the excitement around Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” don’t be surprised if your movie theater starts offering popcorn drizzled with Greek olive oil.
Yet Mr. Nolan’s epic arrives at a time when many colleges are ditching classes about Homer. Not to mention Virgil, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
Some ask: Why should we bother with the classics?
The Monitor posed that question to three scholars. We convened a video conversation between Daniel Mendelsohn, editor at large at The New York Review and a professor at Bard College whose 2025 translation of “The Odyssey” is widely acclaimed; Walter Sterling, president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Anika Prather, a professor at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
We discussed the resurgence of the classics in popular culture, their place in higher education, and why those works face ideological tussles between the left and the right. All three panelists were looking forward to seeing “The Odyssey” at the cinema. They were even more eager to see whether it might generate interest in the classics from young moviegoers.
Regardless of whether you’ve read Homer’s epic, the panel discussion may offer fresh insights into why these ancient Greek and Roman texts have endured for millennia.