The Odyssey Effect: How Homer's Epic Poem Shaped the World

Erica Stevenson (@moaninc) is a London-born historian who earned a BA in Classical Civilization from New York University. Her mission to make ancient history accessible led her to create MoAn Inc. (or MOdern ANcients), a YouTube channel garnering over a million views, which aims to promote the wider conversation of classics by offering breakdowns of ancient texts, book by book, as well as in-depth discussions with professors, fiction writers, and independent scholars. Stevenson has appeared on several history and pop culture podcasts and has been featured in a number of articles. She hopes to encourage more people to engage with the ancient world in vibrant and new ways.

Paul Cartledge graduated with Double First Class Honors from Oxford University in 1969. He has held tenured teaching posts in Classics and Ancient Greek History at the New University of Ulster, Trinity College Dublin, Warwick University, and (1979-2014) Cambridge University. From 2008 to 2014 he was Cambridge's inaugural A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture. He is now the A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge. He holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Thessaly, Thessaloniki and Warwick. He is a Commander of the Order of Honor (Hellenic Republic) and the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of over thirty books, most recently Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press) and Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece (Picador). His biography of Pericles will be published in 2026 (Reaktion Books).