ETERNALSOLDIER
Events & Workshops
Virtual events are planned for the coming months! New events planned for Spring 2021. Subscribe to never miss an update.
Veterans Theater Workshop
Virtual Performance
bluejeans platform
After a COVID-19 induced hiatus, Eternal Soldier is back with a virtual program for this Veterans’ Day.
Under the guidance of a Director--- an accomplished actor and also a combat Veteran---Veterans designed and will perform a virtual program of dramatic readings (script in hand) of ancient through modern drama, poetry, stories or essays of their choosing. All will center on the theme of ‘Homecoming.’
Narratives were selected by the Veterans themselves, to highlight their own experiences of Homecoming. The performance will last for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes, with a Q and A discussion session afterwards, making the total program last two hours.
ETERNAL WARRIOR
November 11, 2020
6pm-8pm
bluejeans platform
Archived Event:
Tuesdays Sept 10-Nov 12 2019
6:30-8:00 pm
Penn Museum
Veterans Read Homer: Iliads
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (which date from around 700 BC) offer one of the worlds's most compelling poetic testaments to the experience of war. Homer portrays the glorious achievements and painful losses of the battlefield, as well as the challenges faced by returning warriors and the civilians who wait for them at home.
Eternal Soldier is pleased to announce its sixth "Veterans Read Homer" book group, "Iliads," which will take place Sept 10-Nov 12, 2019 at the Penn Museum. This workshop is open only to Veterans, and will meet for ten weekly sessions. We will focus on reading Homer's Iliad along with other works of prose, poetry and art inspired by the poem from later writers and artists.
The workshop is free and will be led by Dr. Sheila Murnaghan, Professor of Greek at the University of Pennsylvania. We will meet in the Penn Museum Classroom 2. Space is limited!
Interested in being a part of this?
Send a brief e-mail to info@eternalsoldier.org.
Learn more from a Veteran's perspective on Veterans Read Homer here.
ARCHIVED EVENT
Veteran Experience:
Past and Present
Penn Museum
Saturday, November 12, 2016 Noon
3460 South Street
Philadelphia
Join Eternal Soldier for a guided tour of the Penn Museum designed especially for Veterans. Explore links between ancient and modern veteran experience. The tour will be hosted by
C. Brian Rose PhD, Professor and Curator-in-Charge of the Mediterranean Section and Director of Excavations at Troy (site of the famous Trojan War).
Veterans have told us:
"The tour helped me make a connection to history in
many very meaningful ways."
"The explanations given by Dr. Rose married the experiences of ancient warriors to those experienced by veterans today in a way I was not expecting.
It was fascinating."
Space is limited! Please register below.
Questions? E-mail: info@eternalsoldier.org
Veterans in seminar with the Penn Museum's original 1st cent. AD copy of Homer's Odyssey
Veterans Read Homer Book Group
Eternal Soldier Ideas Discussion Session with Veterans and Historians
Archived Event
TOUCHING HISTORY:
Veterans Archaeology Workshop
at Valley Forge
Valley Forge National Historical Park, Valley Forge PA
Valley Forge National Historic Park has a large public archeology program and welcomes Veterans to participate. More details to come shortly about this exciting opportunity!!
Soldier Quarters, Valley Forge National Historic Park. Wikimedia Commons.
Valley Forge National Historic Park is the site of the third military encampment of the Continental Army, where over the course of a severe winter and a very wet spring of 1777-78 the various militias of the 13 colonies matured into the professional army capable of winning the American Revolutionary War.
Valley Forge was a kind of army city with living quarters made of wood, and where equipment was repaired, recruits were enlisted and training took place from a location where any enemy advance could be observed. Having Veterans participate in the on-going archeological work at Valley Forge provides the chance to “touch history”: to understand the soldiers of the Continental Army, their conditions of service, why they joined and what they accomplished. Current research centers on the portion of the park near Mount Joy and General Henry Knox’s Quarters that housed Woodford’s Brigade, a cohort of approximately 1200 men under the command of General William Woodford of Virginia.
Contact us at for details and registration
ARCHIVED EVENT:
ROBERTA STEWART, PHD
Department Chair and Professor of Classics
Dartmouth College
Dr. Stewart will describe her work reading Homer with combat Veterans
The Value of Homer?
Reading the Iliad and
the Odyssey with
Combat Veterans
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Phila VA Medical Center
1-2 pm
Room 7A141
In a talk geared for Veterans and VA staff members, Dr. Stewart will discuss reading Homer, with examples from the texts and discussions. Her reading courses for combat Veterans "From Ancient Greece to Iraq: Warfare and Homecoming in Homer" and "Homer's Iliad" have been offered at the VA MedEternal Soldier Program Director and Facilitatorical Center in White River Junction, VT and at Dartmouth. She has spoken to clinicians there, and at the West Haven VA Medical Center in addition to her many other papers, books and scholarly presentations.
War Stories, from Troy to Baghdad
(and beyond)
Reading Homer with Combat Veterans
Thursday, March 26, 2015
402 Claudia Cohen Hall
249 south 36th Street
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
4:30-6 pm
In this talk, Dr. Stewart presents the work of an experimental reading course, a book group, designed for combat veterans. Since 2008 she has read Homer, Odyssey and Iliad, with combat veterans and used the ancient texts to explore the soldier's experience of combat and return from war. The talk will summarize the course (its premises, design, logistics, and sessions), explore the particular value of Homer, and suggest next steps for reading ancient literature with vets.
The views expressed on this site in no way reflect those of the US Government or the Department of Veterans Affairs.