ENST 284 - Gender and Environmentalism in the Ancient Mediterranean

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as GRST 284 and WFQS 284) Discourses about gender and the environment were intimately linked in many different cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world. In this course, we survey a wide range of literary documents from Greek, Latin, and Near Eastern cultures, supplemented by art-historical and archaeological material, to consider this link. Readings will include the Enūma Eliš, Homer and Hesiod, Genesis, the Oresteia, Plato’s Timaeus, Hippocratic treatises, Aristotle’s zoological writings, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Seneca’s Medea—all in translation. We pay close attention to a number of questions. How are gendered metaphors used to make sense of geological and meteorological phenomena? How was weather and climate thought to affect bodies in ways that reify (or muddy) gender difference? Why were all trees in Latin considered female? What can we make of the fact that the notions of “cis” and “trans” were originally geographical markers to refer to locations on “this side of” or “the other side of” some natural landform? We also explore how environment and gender are linked in contemporary queer theory and environmental studies, and trace the influence of the ancient world in modern thought. In addition to short essays and reading responses, students work on a substantial research project over the course of the semester. Del Maticic.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS