CALL. 22.01.2017: Gender in Antiquity: Anxieties, Transgressions, and Legacies - Charlottesville (VA
FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 22/01/2017
FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 01/04/2017
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Department of Classics, University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA, USA)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Kevin Scahill
INFO: web - ks8ff@virginia.edu
CALL:
Transgression of gender roles in Greek and Roman sources is abundant and various. While the ancient Greeks and Romans did not conceptualize “gender” as a cultural phenomenon distinct from sex, modern applications of gender theory have revealed the many ways in which cultural expectations affected men and women in antiquity. This research has been fruitful not only in tracing the culturally constructed borders that delineated the sexes but also in revealing how frequently those boundaries could be crossed or unsettled. In the divine sphere, Dionysus the effeminate conqueror and Athena the warrior goddess both appropriate gender characteristics of the opposite sex. For mortals, by contrast, such gender reversals can have deadly consequences: Euripides’ Medea and Livy’s Tullia, for instance, represent cultural anxieties about ambitious women through their assumption of masculine traits. Accusations of gender transgression were also a perennial weapon in the arsenal of iambic poets and orators, whether emasculating male rivals or ascribing sexual misconduct to targets of either sex. At the same time, more playful modes of gender inversion were also present, as Aristophanes’ farces of women in power and the Augustan poets’ celebration of their “soft” verses attest. Even the borders of biological sex were not conceived of as fixed: in addition to the sexual transformations of mythology, ancient medical writers describe the body’s natural sex as disturbingly unstable.
We are interested in receiving papers that explore the complexity of gender in the ancient world, broadly conceived, including its reception in later periods and its influence on contemporary constructions of gender. We welcome submissions from Classics, Art & Archeology, Women & Gender studies, History, Philosophy, Anthropology, Medieval & Renaissance studies, and related disciplines. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- cultural anxieties about sex and gender in antiquity - characters who grapple with gender expectations in literature and myth - characters who seek out or experience gender or sexual reversals - the ancient idea of “gendering” genres and texts (e.g. elegy vs. epic) - visual constructions of gender in art and material culture - anthropological studies about gender and ancient societies - the reception of ancient constructions of gender in the Medieval, Byzantine, and Renaissance periods - how the tradition of these constructions continues to influence modernity
Papers should be 15-20 minutes in length. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words (not counting bibliography) to Kevin Scahill (ks8ff@virginia.edu) by no later than January 22th, 2017.