Introduction : why read Homer? / Kostas Myrsiades -- Homer as history : Greeks and others in a dark age / Shawn Ross -- Geras and guest gifts in Homer / Rick M. Newton -- Homer's Odyssey, Books 19 and 23 : early recognition, a solution to the enigmas of ivory and horns, and the test of the bed / John B. Vlahos -- Conversation in the Odyssey / Scott Richardson -- The end of speeches and a speech's end : Nestor, Diomedes, and the telos muthôn / Joel Christensen -- Achilles' heel : the historicism of the film Troy / Jonathan S. Burgess -- Redefining Homeric heroism in Wolfgang Petersen's Troy / Charles C. Chiasson -- The Odyssey and Frank Capra's It's a wonderful life / Bruce Louden -- Reading The gunfighter as Homeric epic / Kostas Myrsiades.