Sex and Gender in the Ancient World

This course explores the ideas of sex, sexuality and gender in ancient Greek and Roman literature to better understand how these worked in the social, cultural and political spheres of antiquity. We will analyze the primary literary and material evidence we have for sexuality and gender in Greece and Rome, and survey the modern scholarly approaches to those same texts. Topics will include: interactions between the sexes (courtship, extramarital desire, sex and marriage); same-sex desire and homosociality; the status of women and men in terms of social function, age and religious activity; and transgressions.