In ancient Greece, probably from the Archaic period and certainly from the Classical period onwards, Homer was seen as the preeminent poet. More than that he was a symbol of nationhood, a historian who told the Greeks about their origins and ancestors, and also a witness to the actions and character of the gods. Given… Continue reading →

I dismissed using Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as a metaphor for contemporary science a bit quickly in my 2018 paper ‘Homer in the laboratory’, only focussing on the idea of οικος as a metaphor for how contemporary science labs operate. On reflection I think a more sustained reading of formal science, its practitioners and institutions,… Continue reading →

My ‘Homer in the laboratory’ paper that was published in January 2018 was earlier rejected from another journal; this is fairly common in social science and humanities academic publishing and authors just have to get used to receiving criticism. Sometimes reviewers’ comments are helpful, other times spiteful or dismissive. Occasionally they are factually inaccurate. One… Continue reading →