Research Fields: Nagy’s special research interests include archaic Greek literature and oral traditions. His ongoing goal is to integrate his research with collaborative as well as intergenerational mentorships and public engagement initiatives, especially in the context of his Harvard College and Harvard DCE courses on the ancient Greek hero (with almost 10,000 alumni), and his HarvardX MOOC, which has enrolled over 181,000 learners since its launch in 2013. His recent monographs include Ancient Greek Heroes, Athletes, Poetry (HUP 2024) and Masterpieces of Metonymy: From Ancient Greek Times to Now (HUP 2015).

Selected Other Works:  The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979; 2nd ed., with new Introduction, 1999), which won the Goodwin Award of Merit, (1982). Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter (1974), Greek Mythology and Poetics (1990), Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (1990), Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond (1996), Homeric Questions (1996), Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens (2002), Homer the Classic (2008), Homer the Preclassic (2009), The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (2013).