Schedule of Readings and Assignments
For each meeting, please come into class having read and thought about the readings assigned for that class. To prepare for each meeting, you need to read:
- All of the listed sections from the textbook (Pomeroy’s Goddesses…) and primary sources, and
- At least one of the secondary source readings listed for that week.
Note: Goddesses refers to Pomeroy’s Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, which is a required text. WIA refers to the optional book, Women in Antiquity (Hawley & Levick, eds.); those articles can be accessed by PDF, so the book is not required.
1 Introduction and Themes
Tuesday, February 1
- Watch the Welcome and Orientation Video
- Read: Pomeroy, Introduction to Goddesses
- Sign up for your first presentation
No Meeting (Friday Classes)
Tuesday, February 8
2 Women in The Epic of Gilgamesh
Tuesday, February 15
- Read all of the following:
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
3 The Female Pharaohs of Egypt
Tuesday, February 22
- Read all of the following:
- Roehrig (ed.), Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh
[packet of selected articles]
- Roehrig (ed.), Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
GENDER AND THE GREEKS
4 Ancient Goddesses and Gods
Tuesday, March 1
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “Goddesses and Gods” (Goddesses ch. 1, pp. 1–15)
- Hesiod, Theogony
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
5 The Bronze Age and its Homeric Echo
Tuesday, March 8
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “Women in the Bronze Age and Homeric Epic” (Goddesses ch. 2, pp. 16–31)
- Homer, selections from Iliad and Odyssey
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
6 Women and the Kingdom of Israel
Tuesday, March 15
- Read all of the following:
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
7 Greece Emerging from the Dark Age
Tuesday, March 22
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “The Dark Age and the Archaic Period” (Goddesses ch. 3, pp. 32–56)
- Hesiod, Works and Days
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
- Proposal due the night before
8 Women and the Athenian Polis
Tuesday, March 29
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “Women and the City of Athens” (Goddesses ch. 4, pp. 57–78)
- Aeschylos, from Eumenides
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
- Dewald, “Women and Culture in Herodotus’s Histories”
- Katz, “Ideology and the ‘Status of Women’ in Ancient Greece” (WIA ch. 2, pp. 21–43)
- Pomeroy, “Women’s Identity and the Family in the Classical Polis” (WIA ch. 7, pp. 111–121)
- Walker, “Women and Housing in Classical Greece: The Archaeological Evidence”
9 Living Unpublicly in Classical Athens
Tuesday, April 5
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “Private Life in Classical Athens” (Goddesses ch. 5, pp. 79–92)
- Euripides, from The Bacchae
- Theocritus, “The Women at the Adonis Festival”, from Idylls
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
- Burton, “Women’s Commensality in the Ancient Greek World”
- Dover, “Classical Greek Attitudes to Sexual Behavior”
- Foxhall, “Women’s Ritual and Men’s Work in Ancient Athens” (WIA ch. 6, pp. 97–110)
- Segal, “The Menace of Dionysus: Sex Roles and Reversals in Euripides’ The Bacchae”
- Venit, “Women in Their Cups”
10 Images of Women in Athenian Literature
Tuesday, April 12
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “Images of Women in the Literature of Classical Athens” (Goddesses ch. 6)
- Sophocles, from Antigone
- Euripides, from Medea
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
- Images Essay due the night before
No Meeting (Spring Recess)
Tuesday, April 19
GENDER AND THE ROMANS
11 The Roman Aristocratic Matron
Tuesday, April 26
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “The Roman Matron of the Late Republic & Early Empire” (Goddesses ch. 8)
- Livy, “The Capture of the Sabine Women” and “The Rape of Lucretia”
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
- Boatwright, “Women and Gender in the Forum Romanum”
- Carp, “Two Matrons of the Late Republic”
- Corbier, “Male Power … Through Women Under the Julio-Claudians” (WIA ch. 12, pp.178–193)
- Fantham, “Aemilia Pudentilla: Or the Wealthy Widow’s Choice” (WIA ch. 14, pp. 220–232)
- Fischler, “Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis: … Imperial Women at Rome”
12 Beyond the Roman Aristocracy
Tuesday, May 3
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “Women of the Roman Lower Classes” (Goddesses ch. 9, pp. 190–204)
- “The Twelve Tables”, fragments
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
- Curran, “Rape and Rape Victims in The Metamorphoses”
- Hallett, “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy: Counter-Cultural Feminism”, with responses
- Roller, “Horizontal Women: Posture and Sex in the Roman Convivium”
- Savunen, “Women and Elections in Pompeii” (WIA ch. 13, pp. 194–206)
- Warren, “The Women of Etruria”
13 Women and the Roman Religion
Tuesday, May 10
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “The Role of Women in the Religion of the Romans” (Goddesses ch. 10, pp. 205–226)
- Pliny the Younger, selected letters
- Cato on the Oppian Law
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
14 The Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman Eras
Tuesday, May 17
- Read all of the following:
- Pomeroy, “Hellenistic Women” (Goddesses ch. 7, pp. 120–148)
- Pomeroy, “The Elusive Women of Classical Antiquity” (Goddesses epilogue, pp. 227–230)
- Plutarch, “Advice to the Bride and Groom”
- Also read one of these scholarly articles:
- King, “Self-Help, Self-Knowledge: … Patient in Hippocratic Gynaecology” (WIA ch. 9)
- Lefkowitz, “Influential Women”
- Pomeroy, “Infanticide in Hellenistic Greece”
- Pomeroy, “Spartan Women among the Romans: Adapting Models, Forging Identities”
- Thonemann, “The Women of Akmoneia”
- Wilson, “Female Sanctity in the Greek Calendar” (WIA ch. 16, pp. 233–247)
- Position Paper due the night before
Final Exam (6:00–8:00 p.m.)
Tuesday, May 24