The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer's Odyssey

In Homer’s Odyssey, travel is not only an adventure but a sustained encounter with unfamiliar peoples, customs and ways of organising society. Carol Dougherty examines the poem through the idea of an ‘ethnographic imagination’, arguing that Odysseus’ resourcefulness as a traveller reflects a Greek world itself negotiating mobility, colonisation, exchange and contact with cultures beyond the familiar community.

Through close readings of ships, journeys, hospitality, storytelling and encounters with foreign or fantastical societies, Dougherty connects Homeric myth with the social experience of movement across the early Greek Mediterranean. Her study shows how the poem uses travel to think about identity and difference while also exploring the relationship between navigation and poetic creation. A specialist but rewarding work for readers interested in Homer, archaic Greece, travel, colonial encounters and literary approaches to ancient cultural history.