Virtual Antiquities Circle Lecture – Identity in Antiquity: Ethnicity, Sexuality & Gender

Join us this fall for a series of Virtual Antiquities Circle Lectures presented by Dr. Branko van Oppen. In this final presentation, Dr. van Oppen looks at identity in the ancient world.

In modern times, expressions of identity are recognized through various frames, including: economic class and social status, education and profession, culture and nationality, race or ethnicity, language(s), lifestyle, musical preference, sexual orientation, political allegiance, and religion. In Classical Antiquity such expressions of identity could not be articulated as explicitly because the terminology for voicing thoughts about personal, cultural and national frames of identity did not exist. Therefore examining identity in Classical Antiquity poses some challenges of conveying modern notions that remained unrecognized or were understood differently in ancient times – and were felt differently in different periods and different regions. In this lecture, Dr. Branko van Oppen delves deeper into concepts of identity as they were understood in different regions in Classical Antiquity through an examination of the Museum’s permanent collection and other objects from antiquity.

Speaker: Dr. Branko van Oppen is an ancient historian specialized in queenship during the period from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra. He received his PhD from The City University of New York, where he studied with Sarah Pomeroy; he has over a decade of wide-ranging teaching experience in the U.S. and his native country The Netherlands; and he has worked for five years at the Allard Pierson Museum, which holds the archaeological collection of the University of Amsterdam. Dr. van Oppen’s academic interests further include clay seal impressions, animals in ancient material culture, and Romano-Egyptian mummy portraits, as well as art history and ancient religion.

• Members: Free
• Not-Yet-Members: Suggested donation of $15

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Image: Red-Figure Janiform Kantharos (drinking cup), Greek, Attic, ca. 470 BC, ceramic, Tampa Museum of Art, Joseph Veach Noble Collection, 1986.091