You're going to be here. So, The Hello, I'm Ryan Stitt and welcome back to the History of Ancient Greece.

We are taking a break from a regularly scheduled programming for another special guest episode today.

The guest for today is Joe Goodkin, a Chicago-based singer-songwriter who tours the country

performing his one-man folk opera that's an interpretation of Homer's Odyssey.

He has performed his Odyssey over 290 times in 38 U.S. states in Canada.

Joe's Odyssey is part lecture, part musical performance, and part interactive

discussion.

The centerpiece of his Odyssey is a 30 minute continuous performance of 24 original songs,

performed only with an acoustic guitar and voice, and with lyrics inspired by Odysseus' famous exploits.

We talk about how he was able to combine his bachelor's degree in classics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison

in his years as a professional musician to create something extremely unique,

as well as discuss his methodology and his own

odyssey towards creating the odyssey.

Then we discuss what it's like to be a modern bard and how that has shaped his understanding

of not only the Homeric poems,

but the context in which ancient audiences would have experienced them.

Finally, we converse about his experiences of performing at the NJL or National Junior Classical League, which is where we first met,

as well as in high schools and at universities, which leads us into a further discussion on our views

on the field of classics at large, what it means to be

non-traditional classicists and what we can do and have been able to do to promote classics to a general

audience and why that is important. This episode was recorded when I visited

Joe in Chicago so that I could attend my first Cubs game against my beloved Phillies and

...