Medusa: A History in 3,000 Years
In her role as a seemingly destructive female from classical mythology, Medusa continues to fascinate and disturb modern audiences. She has been interpreted and reinterpreted over the centuries: Is she a dangerous, man-destroying monster? An innocent maiden unjustly punished by the gods? A supernatural entity who just wanted to be left alone? A feminist icon?This talk presents various perspective on Medusa ranging over the last three thousand years, including representations from both literature and art, from early Greek texts such as Hesiod’s Origins of the Gods to recent artistic reconceptions such as Luciano Garbati’s Medusa with the Head of Perseus (2008) and beyond.
Bio
Debbie Felton is Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches ancient Greek and Latin as well as various courses in translation, such as “Fairy Tales in the Ancient World,” “Magic in the Ancient Mediterranean,” and “Monsters of Classical Myths—and Their Meanings.” She specializes in folklore in classical literature and has published on various folklore-related topics including ghosts and witches. She is the author of Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity (1999) and Serial Killers in Classical Myth and History (2021). She has also edited several volumes, including A Cultural History of Fairy Tales in Antiquity (2021) and The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth (2024).
Image: Gorgoneion featuring the head of Medusa, Greece, 4th Century BCE. Pushkin Museum.
Curated & Hosted by
Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She lives in Mytilene.
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