My research concentrates on Homer, early Greek hexameter poems, and their connection with preceding and neighbouring Near Eastern literatures. I am particularly interested in ancient poetic craft and how myth and poetry refract culture, society and religion. My first book, Divine Assemblies in Early Greek and Babylonian Epic (Oxford University Press), investigates the gods of archaic Greek and Sumero-Akkadian epic. A new project compares how orality and writing affected poetic technique and audience expectations in archaic Greece and Babylonia, and considers the possibility of a Hellenic reception of Near Eastern poetry. I take a broad interest in comparing texts in several pre-modern cultures, particularly religious and mythological, following historical and literary approaches.