Join us for an Antiquities Circle lecture related to the exhibition, Identity in the Ancient World, presented by Dr. Jackie Murray.
Few scholars would deny the influence of Asia and Africa on Classical Greek and Roman artistic representations of the human form. Think particularly of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Still, a Western Eurocentric understanding of other cultures has long informed the disciplines of not only Classics, but also Anthropology, Ethnography, and Art History. Cultural biases have often shaped how ancient works of art have been interpreted. This applies especially to the representation of ethnic identities, such as of ancient Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Africans. And these biases continue to distort public and academic discourse today. Therefore, the framework for interpreting ancient identities using Classical Greek and Roman art arguably needs to be reconsidered.
Dr. Jackie Murray is Associate Professor of Classics and African American and Africana Studies in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Kentucky. Her areas of research are Hellenistic and Latin Poetry, Race and Ethnicity in Antiquity, and Black Classicisms, especially the reception of Classics in African American and Afro-Caribbean literature. Dr. Murray has published several important articles on various aspects of Hellenistic and Latin Poetry and Race and the Classics, most recently “Race and Sexuality: Racecraft in the Odyssey” in the first volume of the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Race series edited by Denise McCoskey. She is currently finishing her long-awaited monograph on Apollonius’ Argonautica and is working on several collaborative projects related to race and racism in Antiquity and Classics.
Lectures are offered free with regular admission:
Image:
Ethiopian Woman
Drinking cup in the shape of a head
Ceramic vessel; Attica, Athens; Archaic period, ca. 500-480 bce
ON LOAN FROM A SARASOTA PRIVATE COLLECTION, IL.2023.008.001