Friday, November 12, 2010

Reasoning: Women in the Ancient World

Tonight begins a conference on women in the classical world. I will attend tomorrow and report back. I'm especially excited for a lecture on Sulpicia 1.1 (Tibullus 3.13) in the afternoon.

Anecdote: One of the amusing little stories that always flies around the classics department happened in Greek History two years before I took it. My wonderful history professor is a Spartan historian, who writes a lot about Athenian perspectives on Spartan women. In this particular class (which Propertius II was attending as a prospective student), my Greek history professor had taken her students to the library in order to remind them where their best bet was for finding the print resources for writing their research papers as well as to instruct any who did not know in the use of electronic databases like L'Annee Philologique. As she is pointing to specific sections, journals, etc, she told the class "this is where you would come if you wanted to wanted to research women in the Ancient World." One student, who was known for his propensity toward obnoxious questions, responded, "why would anyone want to research women in the Ancient World." My professor turned toward him and asked, "well why would anyone want to put your head in cement?"

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