In Her Own Words: Ancient Women Authors

01/11/23 • 59 min

In the penultimate episode of season 1, “In Her Own Words: Ancient Women Authors,” we talk with historian and classicist Dr. Kate Cooper about gatekeeping, the privilege of individualism, and those rare surviving moments when women wrote for themselves.
The famous Greek poet Sappho, who wrote of love and loss.
Faltonia Betitia Proba, the elite Roman woman who adapted Virgil to tell Christian history.
The pilgrim Egeria who described her tour of the Holy Lands to her circle of female friends back home.
And of course we revisit Perpetua, the martyr from Carthage we first met in Episode 0.
Shownotes: https://womenwhowentbefore.com/in-her-own-words/

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.
The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.
Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University
Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

Previous Episode

Suffering Witches to Live: Jewish Women and the Legacies of Religious Law

In Episode 8 our hosts talk with Dr. Elizabeth Shanks Alexander about whether women can keep track of their own periods, religious law as a boys’ club, and why ancient rabbis cared about witchery.
Episode show notes: https://womenwhowentbefore.com/suffering-witches-to-live.
Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.
The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.
Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University
Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

Next Episode

Out of Pandora’s Box, Recovering Hope

On the Season 1 finale we talk with Dr. Deborah Lyons about ancient Greek myths, breaking cultural boxes, and why we should all strive to be killjoys.
Pandora's box, Penelope's gifts, Helen's beauty in Sappho's poetry, and more. Why does it matter that Pandora didn't actually have a box in the earliest versions of the myth? How were objects and the practice of gift-giving gendered in Classical Greece? What rituals did ancient Greek women participate in, and what did they produce? As we study ancient women, what strategies can we turn to for unearthing hope?
Shownotes: https://www.womenwhowentbefore.com/out-of-pandoras-box-recovering-hope/
Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.
The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.
Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University
Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.