This episode of Classics Confidential is linked to Weaving Women’s Stories – a series of events organised by Dr Emma Bridges and Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts, as part of the 2018 Being Human Festival.
It features, in order of appearance:
Emma Bridges (Institute of Classical Studies) on Homer, Penelope, Ovid and reception
Ursula Rothe (The Open University) on different kinds of fabrics and archaeological evidence for textile production
Mary Harlow (University of Leicester) on looms, fabric production as metaphor, and the importance of textile production as a theme in ancient history
Ellie Mackin Roberts (Royal Holloway, University of London) on the arrephorroi and sensual approaches to ancient weaving
Ben Ferris (Sydney Film School) on his 2009 feature film, Penelope
Anna Fisk (University of Glasgow) on her work as a knitting practitioner and academic researcher in contemporary craft practices and implicit religion.
You can find details of the live events on the Institute of Classical Studies website, but even if you can’t attend, do keep an eye on the Twitter hashtag #WeavingWomensStories, where Emma (@emmabridges) and Ellie (@EllieMackin) will be sharing photos and links from the events as they happen.
Some further resources are listed below the audio links:
How to Listen
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Alternatively, you can find us on our OU podcast channel, or you can listen to the programme on Soundcloud.
Find out more
Open Access Resources
- Read more about the connections between clothmaking and storytelling in this blog post by Emma Bridges, ‘From Arachne to Craftivism’
- Watch the trailer for Ben Ferris’ film Penelope. (nb. you can also buy the DVD, or rent the film via the website Ozflix.tv).
- Read an interview between Ben Ferris and Leanne Glass in the Open University journal Practitioners’ Voices in Classical Studies.
- Read a freely-available PDF of a book on Traditional Textile Craft – an Intangible Cultural Heritage? (published by the Centre for Textile Research in Copenhagen, this volume includes a chapter by Mary Harlow on ‘Textile Crafts and History’
- Explore the Centre for Textile Research Facebook Page
- Read an essay by Magdalena Ohrman entitled “The Singing Loom: The Importance of Textile Production in the Roman Domestic Soundscape” (originally published in L. Eneix & M. Ragussa (eds.) Archaeoacoustics lll: More on the archaeology of sound. OTS Foundation, 2018. p. 143-150)
Further bibliography on weaving (work in progress!)
Fisk, Anna (2012) ‘To make, and make again’: feminism, craft and spirituality’, Feminist Theology, 20(2), pp. 160-174.
Harlow, Mary and Nosch, Marie-Louise (eds) (2014), Greek and Roman Textiles and Dress. An Interdisciplinary Anthology. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Heath, John (2011), ‘Women’s work: female transmission of mythical narrative’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 141, pp. 69-104.
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. (1991), ‘What was Penelope unweaving?’, in Heilbrun, Hamlet’s Mother and Other Women: Feminist Essays on Literature. London: The Women’s Press, pp. 103-11.
Ohrman, Magdalena (2014) ‘From Calathos to Carmen: Metapoetics in the Story of the Daughters of Minyas (Ovid Metamorphoses 4)’, in Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature. Oxbow, Oxford.
Pantelia, Maria (1993), ‘Spinning and weaving: ideas of domestic order in Homer’, American Journal of Philology 114, pp. 493-501.
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