| This course examines the lives of women as expressed through the visual culture and archaeology of ancient Greece. By looking at images of women in statues, reliefs, coins, and painting, we explore the role of visual representation in communicating complex social, cultural, and political messages. We consider the different roles women played in Greek culture, contrasting, for example, the relatively restricted world of Athenian women with the more independent lifestyle of the high class courtesan, and explore how visual imagery actively constructed and communicated these differences. Issues such as the construction of gender, the expression of power and status, the preservation of social hierarchies, the protection of normative values, and the manipulation and control of sexuality are also considered. Attention will be paid to the images of women of all ages, ethnicities, and social classes, including women in Homer, Sappho and her circle on Lesbos, citizen women of Athens, the royal women of Alexander the Great, middle-class women of the Hellenistic Egypt, and those women constructed as “Other” to the civilized, educated male, such as Amazons. We will also explore the usefulness of modern analogies, such as Islamic veiling practices, for understanding the lived experiences of women in antiquity. |
