The Odyssey:

The Odyssey by Homer is one of the oldest stories we have, and also one of the strangest: a tale of monsters, gods, and a man who spends twenty years finding his way home, told in a form that still shapes how we understand journeys, identity, and return.

This is a "book club," depth-mythology style.

Each week we will read closely and talk about Homer's craft as literature, while also asking what the poem reveals psychologically through a Jungian and archetypal lens: the descent to the underworld, the trials of individuation, the figures Odysseus must pass through or past, and the long, slow work of becoming ready to come home.

No prior background in Homer, mythology studies, or depth psychology writ large is required, only a willingness to read the assigned chapters each week and talk about them together.

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The Odyssey:
A Soul's Night-Sea Journey

with Teddy hamstra, ph.d.

BOOK CLUB SEMINAR SERIES

5 Sessions
Mondays starting Feb. 1, 2027

4-6pm Pacific (Los Angeles)
/ 7-9pm Eastern (New York) • Live via Zoom
+ Video Recording will be available

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Early registration pricing until Nov. 18

Teddy Hamstra, Ph.D.

Dr. Teddy Hamstra is an author and educator based in Austin, Texas. An English Literature & Visual Studies PhD recipient of the University of Southern California, his dissertation was entitled "Enchantment as a Form of Care: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Mysticism." He has published numerous online articles ranging from the fiction of Patricia Lockwood to the cinema of David Lynch to the music of the Mississippi Delta Blues, and is a frequent collaborator with the Back from the Borderline podcast. He works with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and has taught online courses on mystical and mythological topics from the Eranos Conferences to Mary Magdalene.

An Invitational Creative Project

Throughout the course, you are invited, optionally, to begin imagining your own personal Odyssey: a creative reimagining of the hero's journey drawn from your own life, in whatever form speaks to you (a piece of writing, a visual work, a mapped-out "wandering," or something else entirely). There is no assignment and nothing to submit (unless you wish to!), only an invitation to notice, as we read, where your own journeys, trials, and returns might echo Homer's. In our final session, we will look at how two major writers each took up this same invitation on a grand scale, as inspiration for whatever shape your own reimagining might take.