Barry B. Powell

Barry B. Powell is the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, author of the widely used textbook Classical Myth and many other books. He is a specialist in Homer and in the history of writing. He has also taught Egyptian philology for many years and courses in Egyptian civilization.

His Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization, Wiley-Blackwell 2009, attempts to create a scientific terminology and taxonomy for the study of writing, and was described in Science as "stimulating and impressive" and "a worthy successor to the pioneering book by Semitic specialist I. J. Gelb."^[1]

Powell's study Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet advances the thesis that a single man invented the Greek alphabet expressly in order to record the poems of Homer. This thesis is controversial. The book was the subject of an international conference in Berlin in 2002 and has been influential outside classical philology, especially in media studies. Powell's Writing and the Origins of Greek Literature follows up themes broached by the thesis.

Powell's textbook, Classical Myth, is used for classical mythology courses in America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as his text The Greeks: History, Culture, Society (with Ian Morris) is widely used in ancient history classes.

Powell's critical study Homer, second edition, translated into foreign languages, is widely read as an introduction for philologists, historians, and students of literature.

A New Companion to Homer (with Ian Morris), translated into modern Greek, is a comprehensive review of modern scholarship on Homer.

His literary works include poetry (Rooms Containing Falcons), an autobiography (Ramses in Nighttown), a mock-epic, The War at Troy: A True History, and an academic novel (A Land of Slaves).

Notes & references

External links

• Personal page

Bibliography

• --, Composition by Theme in the Odyssey, Beiträge zur klassichen Philologie, 1974
• --, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, 1991
• --, A New Companion to Homer (with Ian Morris), E. J. Brill, 1995
• --, A Short Introduction to Classical Myth, Prentice-Hall, 2000
• --, Writing and the Origins of Greek Literature, Cambridge University Piess, 2003
• --, Helen of Troy, Screenplay based on Margaret George novel. 2006
• --, Rooms Containing Falcons, poetry, 2006
• --, The War at Troy: A True History, Mock-epic, 2006
• --, Ramses in Nighttown, autobiography, 2006
• --, Homer, second edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007
• --, Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009
• --, The Greeks: History, Culture, Society, (with Ian Morris), second edition, Prentice-Hall, 2009
• --, Ilias, Odysseia, Greek text with translation of Alexander Pope, 2009
• --, A Land of Slaves, academic novel, 2011
• --, Classical Myth, seventh edition, Prentice-Hall, 2011
• --, World Myth, forthcoming, Prentice-hall
• --, The Iliad: A New Translation, forthcoming, Oxford University Press
• --, The Odyssey: A New Translation, forthcoming, Oxford University Press