Hellenistic Goddesses, Warrior Queens, & Confident Prophetesses: Lifting Up What Was & Asking What's Next - Dr. Ashley Bacchi (UC Berkeley)

The Hellenistic Mediterranean world was home to powerful queens in the Ptolemaic, Attalid, and Seleucid dynasties who were visible to their people in coins, dedicatory inscriptions, temple art, and statues, creating a cultural milieu that fostered a wider call for feminine representation in a range of media. There is a rich assortment of evidence for the varied experience of women and power in the Hellenistic age that challenges metanarratives of gender performance and expectation in the ancient world. Modern scholarship has started acknowledging the power of Hellenistic queens, but most queens are still not represented in most publicly accessible resources. Exploring Hellenistic kingdoms and depictions of their queens opens a discussion of how religion was intertwined into all aspects of society and politics. Students can consider the impact of a landscape that is full of representations of the feminine divine and female leaders, often depicted as one and the same. Focusing on theoretical and interdisciplinary methodological approaches to women and conceptions of gender across the ancient Mediterranean, we will examine the impact of post-Enlightenment models of gender and the body on the reception of ancient Mediterranean art and literature. Exploring modern theories to analyze ancient Mediterranean sources to identify previously held suppositions we will re-evaluate their standing and investigate how intersectional feminist approaches can be applied to challenge previous assumptions that pose a hindrance in fully acknowledging feminine divine power that does not fit modern gender expectations. Hellenistic goddesses, queens, & prophetesses still have the power to influence cultural awareness by changing the meta-narrative about women and power and reclaiming their place in history and the cultural imagination. We can envision possibilities for the future by reflecting on the past.  

[Ashley L. Bacchi, PhD, is the Assistant Professor of Jewish History and Ancient Mediterranean Religions at Starr King School for the Ministry, and was Borsch-Rast Lecturer at UC Berkeley in 2021. Her research focuses on issues related to women’s studies, gender, sexuality, myth, politics, and questions related to social justice in the ancient Mediterranean. Bacchi has cultivated an interdisciplinary approach to contextualizing the Hellenistic Mediterranean, which includes religious studies, classics, art history, archaeology, cultural history, literary theory, and intersectional feminist theory. This approach is exemplified in her award-winning book Uncovering Jewish Creativity in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles: Gender, Intertextuality, & Politics (Leiden: Brill, 2020).]