Classics Cluster Visiting Lecture
Is “Queer” a Useful Category of Historical Analysis? Sappho, Winkler, and the Rest of Us
This talk proposes to examine the relevance of the concept of “queer” to the study of ancient societies. Is such an approach not methodologically anachronistic? Using the example of Sappho’s work—particularly a poem that only became known in its entirety in 2004 thanks to new papyrological evidence—we will compare different interpretations of the poem and the multiple ideological projections it has generated, both before and after 2004. The prescient reading offered by Hellenist John Winkler as early as 1990 highlights the full value of a queer method of analysis for a better understanding of a society “before sexuality.”
Caroline Stevens
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