Feminist Retellings from Sappho to Circe

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

In this seminar, we will study feminist retellings of myths, figures, and tropes from ancient Greek and Roman literature. Situating contemporary retellings alongside ancient sources, we will ask: what makes a retelling “feminist”? What kinds of feminism(s) do these retellings model? Are these feminist retellings purely a modern phenomenon, or do certain ancient genres (e.g., lyric and choral poetry, Greek tragedy) generate feminist potential? Texts may include: Sappho’s fragments, Euripides’ Trojan Women and Bacchae, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Fran Ross’ Oreo, Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad; Madeleine Miller’s Circe.