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Wednesday, July 10, 2019

**Special Guest Episode on Being a Modern Homeric Bard w/Joe Goodkin**


In this special guest episode, I am joined by Joe Goodkin, a Chicago-based singer/songwriter, who tours the country performing his one-man folk-opera interpretation of Homer’s Odyssey. He has performed his Odyssey over 290 times in 38 U.S. states and Canada.  Joe's Odyssey is part lecture, part musical performance, and part interactive discussion. The centerpiece of Joe's 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 and his years as a professional musician to create something extremely unique, and discuss his methodology and his own odyssey towards creating the Odyssey, as well as 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 the. Then, we discuss his experiences of performing at the NJCL (or National Junior Classical League), which is where we first met, as well as in high schools and at universities, 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.

Joe Goodkin


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**You can read an article Joe wrote about being a modern bard here.

To inquire about booking a performance of The Odyssey (or anything else) please contact Joe at joe@joesodyssey.com