Compared to What?: Reverse Similes, Animal Similes, and Poetic Language Beyond the Gender Binary in Homeric Epic
By Eleonora Colli (Oxford University)
In her 2014 essay “Like”, Stephanie Burt made a case for the figure of the simile as a ‘queer poetic tool’ to Burt, the ‘like’ of the simile expresses an instability in language that can be utilised to address an instability in gender and identity as well. The role of the simile in destabilising meaning (e.g., Buxton, 2004; Von Glinsky, 2012; Oswald, 2020) and even its capacity to invert set gender conventions (e.g., Foley, 1978) have both been explored within Classics.
Camilla/Chloreus: Gender Fluidity and Intersexuality in Aeneid 11
By Thomas Biggs (University of St. Andrews / University of Georgia)
Camilla/Chloreus: Gender Fluidity and Intersexuality in Aeneid 11
Breaking Bodies: Materiality and Vulnerability in Heroides 12
By Erin Lam (University of California, Berkeley)
Breaking Bodies: Materiality and Vulnerability in Heroides 12
Beyond a Binary Sappho: (Re)Thinking Sappho’s Gender and Sexuality in Ovid, Her. 15
By Simona Martorana (Durham University)
Beyond a Binary Sappho: (Re)Thinking Sappho’s Gender and Sexuality in Ovid, Her. 15