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The New Classics [Still Need To Figure Out a Better Title]
🕑 Added 2023-06-01 14:15:23 +0000 UTCIf you walk into a bookstore and look at new releases you are very likely to see at least one or two feminist retellings of Greek mythological figures.
From Medusa to Clytemnestra to Penelope, we are seeing the new boom of retellings. But it is not new. What does this new generation of reimagined classics say about the moment we are in and the limitations of trend reimagining versus the way we learn these stories in an academic setting?
Sources & Links:
https://qz.com/quartzy/1408600/the-medusa-statue-that-became-a-symbol-of-feminist-rage
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/arts/design/medusa-statue-manhattan.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Paris
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/29/the-myth-of-whiteness-in-classical-sculpture
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/emily-wilson-on-porous-boundaries-and-the-world-of-homer/
Music & Clips :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmcV90cya1Y
Now We Fight by Bonnie Grace
labour by Paris Paloma
Derry Girls
Hercules & Xena the Battle for Mount Olympus
Poison by Bell Biv DeVoe
Supplementary Reading Material:
(1) The Oedipus Complex, Antigone, and Electra: The Woman as Hero and Victim
Dorothy Willner
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 58-78 (21 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/675950
(2) Women in Greek Myth
MARY R. LEFKOWITZ
The American Scholar, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Spring 1985), pp. 207-219 (13 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41211188
(3) Greek Attitudes towards Women: The Mythological Evidence
P. Walcot
Greece & Rome, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Apr., 1984), pp. 37-47 (11 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/642368
(4) Medusa and the Female Gaze
Susan R. Bowers
NWSA Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring, 1990), pp. 217-235 (19 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316018
(5) Seclusion, Separation, and the Status of Women in Classical Athens
David Cohen
Greece & Rome, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Apr., 1989), pp. 3-15 (13 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/643180
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Comments
sunlit_music
Brilliant video! Really enjoyed your talking about Euripides portraying women sympathetically and how Patrocleus was Black. :)
Gabrielle Marable
Feels so great seeing my name in the credits of one of your videos. Been watching you for years and now that I have a higher income I'm glad to finally be able to support you and everything you do.
Ines Alvarez Rodrigo
Fantastic video. I just sent it to my mum (a classics teacher) and we have a screaming match about Medea for half an hour. 10/10
Cassandra J.
Story time with Princess is my favorite thing ever
Samantha Bonaparte
this is so great. i'm a lover of these retellings without all of the knowledge of the myths so thank you for this analysis!
fissionado
Shocked to learn that there was actually at least one Ancient Greek man who was sympathetic to women.
sirathena
Great video! jars, apple snakes + curiosities forever. / I *really* loved Circe by Madeline Miller, when I read it a few years ago it hit in a way I really needed as a femme who felt that all the women in ancient Greek stories felt very flat. I'm really interested to read Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey. I heard her first line is "Tell me about a complicated man." rather than something like "Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending." and that she uses a matter-of-factness which I imagine departs from the masculine translations. Sidenote: whenever Muse is capitalized I just think of the band. Also sidenote: my grandparents were from Greece and when the Disney Hercules came out (AND I LOVED IT BTW obsessed kid knew all the songs), my dad was like "Oh my father was from Megara ((pronounced differently than the movie))" and I was like "!!"
Michelle M.
Just watched this on Nebula and holy moly, can we please have a series where Princess recaps mythological stories? Her recap of Pandora was fantastic, riveting, funny, and and so many other adjectives in my brain I can't describe right now. Amazing video as always. Thank you!
