090115 SE Life cycles: gender and transitions in the ancient world (2014S)

This course will look at the role of gender in the life course. It will cover conception, birth, puberty, marriage, battle, ageing and death. The evidence used will be mainly literary (poetry, speeches, and law). One of the learning outcomes of the course will be an increased sensitivity to the different types of ancient evidence for gender; a starting point will be a re-examination of the remark of Euripides' Medea, that she would rather stand in battle three times than go through childbirth once. Topics will include: How would parents try to influence the sex of their child before birth? How were men's and women's lives structured in ancient Greece and Rome, and how did assumptions about gender roles influence the rituals that marked key transitions in the life cycle? How did these transitions function in their turn to shape men as "men" and women as "women"? How far was gender something to be performed, with clear expectations about posture, voice and clothing as male or female? The course will end by examining the ultimate gender transition: sex change, as described both in myth and in natural history.