📍Join Odyssey Read-Along https://armenikus.substack.com/p/join-the-odyssey-read-along-may-july📍 Substack: https://armenikus.substack.com📍 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/armenikus

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

In this eye-opening conversation, we sit down with Alina Verbenchuk — entrepreneur, product leader, former YouTube and Google product expert, and co-founder of the music-industry technology platform Korda — to unpack a question that affects us all: How do platforms actually shape our world, and how can we use them without being used by them?

Alina’s new book, How Platforms Work, takes us inside the systems, incentives, and design choices that power today’s biggest digital platforms. Drawing on her years building and scaling products at global tech companies, she reveals the hidden mechanics behind platforms we rely on for connection, knowledge, work, and cultural life — and shows why they behave the way they do.

We’re living in a world unimaginable to our grandparents — and even our parents. Over the past two decades, platforms have exploded, granting us limitless access to knowledge, tools, and opportunities. Yet despite this abundance, we’re still learning how to navigate, control, and tame these forces instead of being pulled along by them. In this episode, Alina helps us understand not only what platforms are, but how we can leverage them on our terms, so that technology amplifies our agency rather than diminishing it.

Tune in to explore:

• The architecture of influence behind modern platforms

• Why access to limitless information doesn’t automatically make us wiser

• Practical frameworks for leveraging platforms instead of being leveraged by them

• What it really takes to build and shape platforms responsibly in the attention economy

Whether you’re a creator, a builder, a thinker, or simply someone trying to make sense of this digital age, this episode will change how you see the technologies that define our lives.

00:00 — Introduction

02:16 — The Real Question: Who Uses Who?

05:03 — Why “How Platforms Work” Had to Be Written

08:39 — The Biggest Myth About Algorithms

12:44 — The Unpleasant Truth: The Algorithm Is Neutral

15:31 — Stop Trying to “Hack” the Algorithm

18:42 — Why Short & Long Content Are Growing Together

23:11 — The Bell Curve of Attention

28:43 — Fame vs Fortune: What Creators Get Wrong

31:43 — Platforms Give Distribution. You Build the Relationship

32:35 — Yes, Platforms Are Attention Machines

36:09 — Train the Algorithm to Be Your Friend

38:52 — The Most Powerful Button on YouTube

40:04 — Cleaning Your Information Diet

42:35 — When Your Topic Becomes a Trap

43:50 — The Content You Never See (And Why)

47:51 — Inside the Machine: What Shook Me at YouTube

52:45 — Final Advice: Use the Algorithm. Don’t Let It Use You

Hello friends,In this episode of The Artidote Podcast, I speak with Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys, authors of Alexandrian Sphinx: The Life of C.P. Cavafy — the first major biography of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets.Together we explore the hidden life behind the polished verse:how Cavafy transformed loneliness into art, guarded his privacy while pursuing immortality, and re-imagined Hellenism for the modern age.We talk about:How Alexandrian Sphinx reveals the man behind the mythCavafy’s secret methods and his rewriting of Greek poetic traditionThe tension between fame and solitudeWhy “Ithaca”, “The City”, and “Myris: Alexandria, A.D. 340” still speak to our centuryCavafy teaches us that the journey matters more than arrival, and that art — not applause — redeems a life.🎧 Listen to the full conversation📖 Alexandrian Sphinx by Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys — available now💬 Subscribe for more conversations on poetry, philosophy, and the art of living.00:00 Introduction — Discovering C.P. Cavafy01:10 The Magic of Bookshops & First Encounter with Cavafy02:10 Why Cavafy Matters Today04:05 Who Was Cavafy? A Poet for the 21st Century05:00 Cavafy as a Modern & Queer Poetic Voice06:30 Why Cavafy Foretold Globalization07:30 Why Has No Biography Been Written Until Now?08:40 Writing Alexandrian Sphinx — Birth of the Book10:00 Writing the Biography Thematically vs Chronologically11:40 How the Archive Shaped the Story13:10 How the Authors Personally Discovered Cavafy15:10 The Meaning of “The City”19:40 The Power Cities Have Over Us20:40 Most Surprising Discoveries About Cavafy22:10 Sacrifice, Ambition & the Price of Art24:40 Transactional Relationships & Friendship26:50 Co-Authoring a Biography — Disagreements & Granite vs Rainbow32:10 Myth-Making & Breaking: Who Was the Real Cavafy?36:30 Solitude vs Sociability — Was He Really a Recluse?38:00 Cavafy’s Writing Process & Rewriting His Life’s Work41:30 Why He Burned His Early Poems44:10 Lines & Poems That Stay With Us46:10 Dividing Cavafy’s Life & Evolution of Themes48:50 What Would We Ask Cavafy If He Were Here?50:30 Was Fame Worth the Sacrifices?53:00 Self-Promotion and the Apostles of Cavafy59:40 Is Cavafy Accessible to Modern Readers?1:02:10 Recommended Poems to Start With1:09:00 Cavafy’s Advice on Life1:10:10 Book Recommendations from the Authors1:13:10 Upcoming Projects1:14:30 Closing Reflections#Cavafy #GreekPoetry #AlexandrianSphinx #ArtidotePodcast #ModernGreekPoetry #Ithaca #PoetryPodcast