Join us for a virtual symposium on July 28 at 6 PM. This symposium is free and open to the public. RSVP required.
Dr. Jackie Murray will give a free virtual talk on race in The Odyssey looking through the lens of the new Christopher Nolan film and classical interpretations.
About the symposium:
Christopher Nolan’s much anticipated adaptation of Homer’s the Odyssey, coming to screens this July, casts award-winning actresses Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Zendaya as Athena. Casting non-white actresses as figures from Greek mythology has already ignited a backlash on social media platforms.
Scholar Jackie Murray will lead us through a more nuanced understanding of issues concerning race in the Homeric epics. She will preview with us new research from The Race of Heroes in Ancient Greek Epic, a forthcoming book for Yale University Press.
In this talk, she will deconstruct White supremacist receptions of ancient Greek and Roman epics. She notes that there is a profound hypocrisy in such critiques, leveled at non-white actors or actresses, while ignoring the long-standing tradition of casting blond, fair-skinned actors such as Matt Damon, as Odysseus--who is described in the epics as having black skin and curly hair.
In contrast, she will demonstrate that in ancient classical thought, a black-white skin-color binary was not the primary basis for organizing human groups into masters and slaves. The presentation closely examines the ancient epics to show that they constructed the ancient racial hierarchy on other factors, such as descent, occupation and gender. The vitriolic, coordinated backlash against Nolan’s film is not a defense of historical fidelity, but an attempt to gatekeep the classical past to maintain a White supremacist racialization of classical antiquity.
About the speaker:
Jackie Murray is an Associate Professor of Classics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is a scholar of ancient Greek language and literature, especially Hellenistic poetry and its influences on literature of the Roman Imperial period, with additional research interests in Race studies and the Classics, and the reception of Classical literature in African American and Afro-Caribbean literature.
She is the author of Apollonius’ Argonautica and the Poetics of Controversy, and co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race. She is currently working on several book projects: a text and commentary of Apollonius’ Argonautica Book 2 for Cambridge University Press; a project on Race and Slavery in Plato’s Republic (co-authored with David Kaufman); and Becoming the Ibis: Apollonius, Callimachus and the Dynamics of Allusion and Reception for Harvard University Press.
She is the recipient of prestigious fellowships and awards, including the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies (2025), the Lord Byron Medal (2023), the American Academy on Berlin (2022), the Tytus Fellowship (2017), and the American Academy in Rome (2011-2012).
She received her Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Washington (2005), an M.A. in Classics from University of Western Ontario (now Western University), and a B.A. summa cum laude in Latin and Classical Studies from the University of Guelph.
Symposium sponsors:
Centennial Park Conservancy
Additional sponsors:
The Parthenon, part of Metro Parks & Recreation, would like to thank the following organizations that provide underwriting support for its exhibition and educational programming, including Symposia, through grants and corporate partnerships with Centennial Park Conservancy:
Archaeological Institute of America- Nashville Society, Amazon, the Sandra Schatten Foundation, HCA Healthcare Foundation, Tennessee Arts Commission, Hays Foundation, and Advance Financial Foundation
Individuals can support the Parthenon by making a donation or becoming a member of Centennial Park Conservancy. Learn more.
Upcoming symposia:
August 20th- American Art Symposium: Ralph Albert Blakelock: The Brilliant and the Tragic