Weaving and the production of textiles have often been read in contemporary feminist criticism of ancient Greek and Latin epic poetry as metaphors for female creativity and poetic composition or narration and as channels for the female voice, providing a feminine counterpart to the male-authored text. The “voice of the shuttle” has become a symbol for female agency, empowerment, and resistance, particularly in the face of the sexual violence that pervades the genre. In this lecture, Prof. Hu examines the implications of textiles and textile metaphors for narration in Hypsipyle’s narrative of her rape in Statius’s Thebaid, showing how they function to (re)produce, both in Statius’s text and in scholarly interpretations of Statius’s text, the power dynamics at the core of sexual violence narratives.
Please register at https://forms.gle/HoyL49dLzxTAkaMz9 to receive the URL to attend the lecture virtually, via zoom. You will receive the URL by email. And if you want to attend by person, please do so. It is in ETC 208, on the Reed College campus. Please direct any questions to Nigel Nicholson at nnichols@reed.edu.