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If you want to start reading The Odyssey, understand Homer’s epic more deeply, or prepare for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation, this conversation is one of the best places to begin.In this episode of the Artidote Podcast, I sit down with classicist and author Professor Emily Katz Anhalt to explore why Homer’s Odyssey continues to speak across thousands of years. Between May and July this year, more than 3,000 readers on my Substack are reading The Odyssey together — book by book, week by week — and this conversation emerged from the questions that kept appearing during our read-along.Why does an oral epic from the ancient Greek world still resonate in modern life? What do Athena, Zeus, fate, hospitality, suffering, storytelling, and deception reveal about the human condition? And how did the Greeks understand free will, destiny, political authority, memory, and moral responsibility?Professor Emily Katz Anhalt explains how the Odyssey is not merely an adventure story about a man returning home, but a profound meditation on community, self-restraint, leadership, skepticism, suffering, and what it means to become fully human. We discuss the psychology of Telemachus, the extraordinary complexity of Penelope, the Greek concept of xenia (hospitality), Odysseus as an unreliable narrator, and why ancient Greek audiences were expected not simply to believe stories — but to judge them critically.If you are reading The Odyssey for the first time, or returning to it after many years, I hope this discussion deepens your understanding of one of humanity’s greatest works. It is also an ideal conversation for readers preparing to experience Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of The Odyssey, offering historical, philosophical, and psychological context before entering Homer’s world.Professor Emily Katz Anhalt is Professor of Classics at Sarah Lawrence College and author of:• Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths• Embattled: How Ancient Greek Myths Empower Us to Resist Tyranny• Ancient Wisdom for Polarized Times: Why Humanity Needs Herodotus, the Man Who Invented History