Profs and Pints Nashville presents: “Reclaiming Cleopatra,” an exploration of the life and legacy of a queen who continues to influence our thoughts about women and power, with Stephanie McCarter, who teaches a class on women and gender in antiquity as a professor of classics at the University of the South in Sewanee.
Few names are as immediately evocative as “Cleopatra,” a figure who over the centuries has inspired both creative works and heated debate. Yet the historical figure behind the name is tantalizingly elusive.
Learn what we know—and don’t know—about this famous queen in a talk that will examine Cleopatra as both a historical figure and an invented one. You’ll learn how her Roman foes shaped her indelible legacy and how her own self-representations tell us a different story.
Professor Stephanie McCarter, who last winter gave a fantastic Profs and Pints talk on sex in ancient Rome, will help us get to know the real-life Cleopatra as a ruler and administrator. She’ll discuss Cleopatra’s travels to Rome and, of course, her famous death. You’ll learn why Cleopatra has a Greek name, how she used her hair to make a political statement, whether she really did marry her brothers, and why she destroyed a priceless pearl to make a statement. Among the questions the talk will tackle: Why are we arguing about Cleopatra’s race?
In examining how Cleopatra is remembered, Dr. McCarter will talk about why an early portrait of the Egyptian queen depicted her as a man. She’ll discuss how Cleopatra’s portraits on coins have been deemed “ugly” and why that misses the point. You’ll hear about other famous queens, such as Amanirenas and Zenobia, whose legacies have been overshadowed by Cleopatra, and consider why Cleopatra became so famous when other ancient women have receded from view.
Professor McCarter will examine some of the most famous literary and artistic depictions of Cleopatra from antiquity and later periods, considering why some more than others play an outsize role in our popular imagination. She will illuminate the complex intersection in classical antiquity between misogyny and ethnic hostility, and she will show how the Romans, and others in turn, sought to damn Cleopatra by making her sexually irresistible.
We’ll see numerous examples of women today reclaiming Cleopatra as a way of owning their own beauty and sexual agency. Finally, we will consider why Cleopatra continues to fascinate us and how her legacy has shaped our own tangled views about women in powerful positions. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)