The Renaissance Search for Homeric Troy

Title: The Renaissance Search for Homeric Troy

By Jonathan Sawday (Saint Louis University, English Department)

Date: Monday, November 23, 2026

Time: 1700-1830

Room: C-Blok Amphi

Abstract: In the late sixteenth century British travelers first began to visit Anatolia in search of the remains of ancient Troy. Driven by the belief that the British were the descendants of the Trojans, they were also searching for their own point of origin in what would become modern Turkey. But, the Ottoman Empire, too, claimed a Trojan point of origin. This talk will tell a little of the story of these two competing fables, while also tracing the curious afterlife of a wandering Troy – a place, a name, and a legend.

About the speaker: Jonathan Sawday is the Walter J. Ong, SJ, professor in the humanities at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO, USA. Sawday studied English at Queen Mary College London, and University College London. Before moving to the US in 2009, he taught at universities in England, Ireland, and Scotland. His books include: Literature and the English Civil War (1990) co-edited with Tom Healy; The Renaissance Computer: Knowledge Technology in the First Age of Print (2000), co-edited with Neil Rhodes; The Body Emblazoned (1995); and Engines of the Imagination: Renaissance Culture and the Rise of the Machine (2007). His most recent book, Blanks, Print, Space, and Void: An Archaeology of Absence (2023), was awarded the 2024 James Russell Lowell prize by the MLA.

Organized by the Department of English Language and Literature