Persephone The Wanderer (I)

Thinking about how, to let the myth of Persephone fit the themes of the Metamorphoses, Ovid had to insert two rather unknown/unpopular side stories about  a river nymph turning into water/liquid in her own stream, and a nymph giving Demeter the news, and how this affects the myth

Like for one the Metamorphoses in essence is caught up with the gods’ violence against lesser beings, mostly nymphs, women and mortals in general, and deals with the utter helplessness and loss of control these beings experience when they are transformed, as punishment or to escape a worse fate or simply because their suffering becomes too great for any mortal to bear. And here’s Persephone, a goddess and a rather major one, who by all means experiences the same type and amount of suffering. Ovid literally calls her a goddess on par with the other gods, and reasons this is why the six-month rule comes about. Where do you take that myth? The outcome is set in stone, her cyclical seasons-bound fate is so integral to the ancient cosmos, and yet it falls flat in a story like the metamorphoses, where the Olympian gods are usually on the other side of the fence. But here we have these two nymphs, who both experienced the violence done to Persephone and either give it a voice or dissolve into nothing, have their body and being entirely taken away from them. 

So I really think Cyane and Arethusa are almost stand-ins for Persephone, where the the former gets the metamorphosis that symbolizes the pain and suffering that the abduction causes, as she literally dissolves into tears and cannot speak anymore when she manifests again, and Arethusa’s story of her own nearly successful abduction and subsequent exile/displacement give us Persephone’s side of the story, but in a less repetitive way than in the Homeric hymn. 

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Judith with the Head of Holofernes (ca.1633-37, detail) Francesco Cairo

decolonial art history starter guide

really tired of seeing AH on the internet/tumblr talked about w the same extreme reverence for the classics that has dominated the field since its conception and has led to the proliferation of white supremacist ideals in this course of study i love very much so decided to channel that by collecting some of my favorite readings on decolonizing art history, with a particular focus on the ancient/classical world. note: this is by no means an extensive list, but rather a selection of pieces i found helpful when starting to explore decolonial art history - with this list i'm focusing more on broad issues than highly specific case studies

reflections on the painting and sculptures of the greeks. jj winckelmann: giving this one a preface as it is quite literally the least decolonial art historical text you can find but also the one that kicked off classical art history studies as we know it (winckelmann is largely seen as the father of art history). as such it is worth a read to understand what these arguments are based around - in more recent years this text has been used extensively to support the white supremacist idea that aryan art came from the great green past and that anything not pertaining to the greeks was ‘degenerate’

decolonization is not a metaphor. tuck and yang.

empty the museum, decolonize the curriculum, open theory. nicholas mirzeoff.

decolonizing art history. grant and price.

decolonization: we aren't going to save you. puawai cairns.

why we need to start seeing the classical world in color. sarah bond.

beyond classical art. caroline vout.

classics and the alt-right: historicizing visual rhetorics of white supremacy. heidi morse.

decolonizing greek archaeology: indigenous archaeologies, modernist archaeology and the post-colonial critique. yannis hamilakis.

how academics, egyptologists, and even melania trump benefit from colonialist cosplay. blouin, hanna, and bond. (i'd like to flag this one in particular with a nod to tumblr's obsession with maintaining a certain aesthetic linked to what you study).

James Baldwin.

Common Tree Boa - yellow Morph.  

PHOTO : Pete Oxford.

Here are some diversified open-source syllabi and reading lists on race, gender, Kashmir, Palestine, caste, sexuality, colonialism and modernism, design and systems, feminism, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, data and tech, labour studies, African studies, disability studies, violence and it’s textures by some amazing educators and activists. Reblog, share and email decolonis.zing@gmail.com to include more in the list!

Decoloniszing Gender - khari jackson, Malcolm Shanks

Modernity and Coloniality - Ahmed Ansari

Design Thinking For Complex Systems- Ahmed Ansari

Feminist and Social Justice Studies- Dr. Alex Ketchum

Afrotectopia

Design + Anthropology - Shannon Mattern

“Shakespeare in the ‘Post'Colonies” -Amrita Dhar

At the Intersection of Critical Race and Disability Studies: A Bibliography - Amrita Dhar

Testimonials + local literature - Mountain Voices

Introduction to Critical Race Theory for 2017- Adrienne Keene

Mini Courses on Art and Culture - Asia Art Archive

Sound and Violence, Sound as Violence - Pedro Oliveira

Violence - Pedro Oliveira

Border thinking and Border as culture - Pedro Oliveira

Introduction to decolonial thinking and decolonising methodologies -Pedro Oliveira

The Kashmir Syllabus - Stand With Kashmir

Palestine Reading List - Danah Abdulla

A Bibliography of Caste Readings - Jyothi James

Decolonizing the Malabari Mind - Jyothi James

Labour and Tech Reading List - Alexandra Mateescu and Eve Zelickson

Diversifying your Design Syllabus: Recommended Readings by Women, Non-binary, and Culturally Diverse Authors - Hillary Carey

Between Scarcity and Excess: Capitalism, Population Control and the Climate Crisis - Luiza Prado

Decolonising Science Reading List - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Everyday Orientalism - Katherine Blouin, Usama Ali Gad, Rachel Mairs

The Minotaur in the Labyrinth

The Minotaur in the Labyrinth stands as one of the ancient stories that has survived the test of time and continuously appears in mainstream entertainment. Most understand that this concept began with the story of Theseus of ancient Athens and how he navigated the labyrinth and slayed the beast within, but many don’t know the inspiration of this idea.

Nearly a millennia before Classical Greece rose to the height of its power (500-350 BCE) the two leading cultures of the Aegean Sea were the Mycenaeans on the mainland and the Minoans on modern day Crete, and it is on this island that we find the labyrinthian structures of Bronze age Greece.

The Bronze Age Palace at Knossos: Plan and Sections by British archaeologist Sinclair Hood and Canadian archaeologist William E, Taylor, Jr., was published as Supplementary Volume No. 13 of The British School at Athens in 1981. It shows the archaeological remains of one of the many Minoan Palaces. Though mostly destroyed and crumbling, we can still see the complex layout of halls and rooms that twist, turn, and abruptly end. Beginning with the excavations of Sir Arthur Evans in 1900, scores of theories have been raised about the purpose of such confounding architecture, from a form of defense to a means of controlling foreign visits.  

Besides the confusing architecture, though no depictions of minotaurs were found, Minoan Palaces such as the one at Knossos did contained several pieces of art that depicted bulls. Upon further inspection, the symbol of the Bull was quite prominent throughout the ancient culture from sports, such as bull leaping, to religious sacrifice.

When looking to those who lived in the past, one should remember that we are not the only ones who inquired about archaeological remains. These ruins would’ve been seen by the Classical Greeks, but by that time their imaginations about the great Palaces and Bull iconography of the Minoan civilization was transformed into the myth of the Minotaur in the Labyrinth.

View more posts on Ancient Greece.

– LauraJean, Special Collections Undergraduate Classics Intern