Speaker: Daisy Dunn
Topic: Women in the Ancient World
Venue: Vinson Building
Time: 11:30-12:30 Friday 13 September
Talk Summary:
For centuries, men have been writing histories of antiquity filled with warlords, emperors and kings. But when it comes to incorporating women, aside from figures such as Cleopatra and Boudicca, writers have been more comfortable describing mythical heroines than real ones. While Penelope and Helen of Troy live on in the imagination, their real-life counterparts have been relegated to the margins. It is now time to rediscover and reclaim Enheduanna, the earliest named author, the poet Sappho, and Telesilla, who defended her city from attack. Or Artemisia, the sole female commander in the Greco-Persian Wars, and Cynisca, the first female victor at the Olympic Games. Cleopatra may be the more famous, but Fulvia, Mark Antony’s wife, fought a war on his behalf. Many other women remain nameless but integral to the history of the ancient world.
Daisy Dunn is an award-winning classicist and author of seven books, of which her latest is The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World through the Women Who shaped It (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). She is a critic and cultural commentator, with columns in the Spectator and Spear’s, and regular bylines in the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Engelsberg Ideas and Literary Review. She has also written for The Times, Daily Mail, Evening Standard, History Today, the London Magazine, New Statesman, Newsweek, the Oldie, the TLS and Catholic Herald, and in the US she has written for the LA Review of Books, New Criterion and Lit Hub. She is Editor of Argo, an international journal of Greek culture published by the Hellenic Society.