Includes selections translated from the Ancient Greek.

In the Homeric Epics, important references to specific autonomous systems and mechanisms of very advanced technology, such as automata and artificial intelligence, as well as to almost modern methods of design and production are included. Even if those features of Homeric science were just poetic concepts (which on many occasions does not explain the astonishing details of design and manufacture, like the ones included in the present volume), they seem to prove that these achievements were well within human capability. In addition, the substantial development of machine theory during the early post-Homeric age shows that the Homeric descriptions were a kind of prophetic conception of these machines, and scientific research must be a quest for the fundamental principles of knowledge available during the Late Bronze Age and the dawn of the Iron Age. Such investigations must of necessity be strongly interdisciplinary and also proceed continuously in time, since, as science progresses, new elements of knowledge are discovered in the Homeric Epics, amenable to scientific analysis. This book brings together papers presented at the international symposium Science and Technology in Homeric Epics, which took place at Ancient Olympia in 2006. It includes a total of 41 contributions, mostly original research papers, covering diverse fields of science and technology, in the modern sense of these words.

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Presented in both English and Portuguese, this lyric poetry collection explores the “troublesome blessing and burden of being human” (Publishers Weekly). Love. Sex. Death. Meat. Traffic. Pets. In Cattle of the Lord, Rosa Alice Branco offers a stunning poetic vision at once sacred and profane, a rich evocation of daily life troubled by uneasy sacramentality. In a collection translated by Alexis Levitin and presented in both Portuguese and English, readers find themselves in a world turned upside down: darkly comic, sensual, and rife with contradiction. Here, liturgical words become lovers’ invitations. Cows moo at the heavens. And chickens are lessons on the resurrection. Over the course of the collection, Branco’s unorthodox—even blasphemous—religious sensibility yields something ultimately hopeful: a belief that the physical, the quotidian, and the animalistic are holy, too. Flesh, in all its meanings—the body of the other, caressed; the animals we abuse, and eat; the sacrificial offering of Christ—demands reverence. Writing at the boundaries of sense and mystification, combining sensuous lyrics and wit with theological interrogation, Branco breaks down what we think we know about religion, faith, and what it means to be human. “Lord, how much compassion will it take for you,” her speaker cries, “To be godfather at the Sunday barbecue?” Praise for Cattle of the Lord “In Rosa Alice Branco, via the compelling translations of Alexis Levitin, we find a poet of immense spiritual, as well as intellectual, curiosity.” —Nicky Beer “A wild and sneaky book, filled with intelligence, wit, and theological anxiety. . . . Marvelous, moving, and obsessive.” —Kevin Prufer “Throughout Cattle of the Lord, speakers wield their futile agency to beseech an impassive Lord in the face of their mortality. The result is a raw, daring interrogation that demands both contemplation and confrontation. Limbed with lush language, provocative imagery, and sharp sentiment, Branco’s world is beautiful. But, make no mistake, it is foremost a bier.” —The Los Angeles Review

“The best all-around study of the American cowboy ever written. Every page crackles with keen analysis and vivid prose about the Old West. A must-read!” —Douglas Brinkley, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America The open-range cattle era lasted barely a quarter century, but it left America irrevocably changed. Cattle Kingdom reveals how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We meet a diverse cast, from cowboy Teddy Blue to failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. This is a revolutionary new appraisal of the Old West and the America it made. “Cattle Kingdom is the smartly told account of rampant capitalism making its home—however destructive and decidedly unromantic—on the range. . . . [A] fresh and winning perspective.” —The Dallas Morning News “Knowlton writes well about all the fun stuff: trail drives, rambunctious cow towns, gunfights and range wars . . . [He] enlists all of these tropes in support of an intriguing thesis: that the romance of the Old West arose upon the swelling surface of a giant economic bubble . . . Cattle Kingdom is The Great Plains by way of The Big Short.” —Wall Street Journal “Knowlton deftly balances close-ups and bird’s-eye views. We learn countless details . . . More important, we learn why the story played out as it did.” —The New York Times Book Review “The best one-volume history of the legendary era of the cowboy and cattle empires in thirty years.” —True West “Vastly informative.” —Library Journal “Absorbing.” —Publishers Weekly