Ellie Mackin - Weaving Athena: An object-focused study of girls and women approaching Athena as a poliadic deity

I'm delighted to share the third of the abstracts for the Athena event on 3 June - by Dr Ellie Mackin of King’s College London

Weaving Athena: An object-focused study of girls and women approaching Athena as a poliadic deity

This paper will present an ethnographic study of the lives of the girls and women who were involved in the annual adornment of Athena Polias at the Panathenaia. This will include both those who wove the peplos and members of the wider Athenian community who participated in the festival. Therefore, this study will include the young arrhephoroi, the Ergastinai (‘weavers’) who were maidens of marriageable age, the Priestess of Athena Polias, and the Athenian and metic girls who participated in the procession – in other words, a representation of every female belonging to the Athenian population. Through this study, I will discuss what the physical act of worship (the production of a specific object and the act of processing) can tell us about how individuals approached Athena as the goddess of their city, and how this was expressed specifically for women and girls. This study will articulate the specific influence that Athena had, both as a ‘female god’ and a poliadic divinity, in the lives of the individual females who were involved in her worship. Thus, it will comment on Athena as a living goddess to her worshipers.

Maciej Paprocki - Trickster Athena as a granddaughter of Okeanos and Tethys

I'm please to share the second of the abstracts for Athena: Sharing New Research on 3 June, by Dr Maciej Paprocki of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München:

Trickster Athena as a granddaughter of Okeanos and Tethys.

Athena, the sovereign mistress of cunning intelligence, has many an opposite number among Greek deities: for example, Vernant and Detienne in their Cunning intelligence in Greek culture and society observe and discuss functional similarities and contiguities between Athena, Metis, Thetis, Hephaistos and Hermes—archetypal trickster deities, deft at binding magic (1991/1974: 140-144, 181-183, 300-305). In this presentation, I build on Detienne and Vernant’s observations and postulate that such deities form a fuzzy ‘trickster’ class in the Greek pantheon, linked by their shared matrilineal genealogy in Hesiod’s Theogony, descending them from Okeanos and Tethys.

Shadowy, sly shapeshifters learned in magical arts, (great-)grandchildren of Okeanos comprise some of the craftiest and grandest trickster gods of Greece: into their group one may include descendants by birth (Kalypso, Maia, Hermes, Athena, Prometheus, Kirke, Medea, Metis, Thetis) and descendants by adoption (Hera through Tethys and Hephaistos through Thetis and Eurynome). In the Theogony, Hesiod’s obliquely expresses his theological convictions through carefully planned divine marriages and resultant offspring. I argue that the poet instinctively understood functional similarities between trickster-type deities and thus traced their descent from Okeanos and Tethys, primordial gods of transformation and change: transcending Hesiod, the Okeanos trickster genealogy lingers in later Greek works, with authors conceptually juxtaposing these deities in their works.

Selected bibliography:

BRACKE, E. (2009), “Of Metis and Magic. The Conceptual Transformations of Circe and Medea in Ancient Greek Poetry”, PhD, Department of Ancient Classics, National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

CATALIN, A. (2009), “On the Mythology of Okeanos”, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 143–150.

DELCOURT, M. (1957), Héphaistos ou, la légende du magicien, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de philosophie et lettres de l'Université de Liège, Vol. 146, Paris.

DETIENNE, M., VERNANT, J.-P. (1991), Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, J. LLOYD (trans.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago [first published as Les Ruses de l’intelligence: La Mètis des Grecs in 1974].

KONSTAN, D. (1977), “The Ocean Episode in the "Prometheus Bound"”, History of Religions, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 61–72.

KORENJAK, M. (2000), “Die Hesperiden als Okeanos-Enkelinnen: eine unnötige Crux bei Apollonios Rhodios”, Hermes, Vol. 128 No. 2, pp. 240–242.

VERNANT, J.-P. (1970), “Thétis et le poème cosmogonique d'Alcman”, [in:] Crahay, R., Derwa, M. and Joly, R. (Eds.), Hommages à Marie Delcourt, Latomus Collection, Bruxelles, pp. 38–69.

Marion Meyer - Athena and her foster child

In the run-up to the Athena event on 3 June, I'm going to be releasing the abstracts gradually starting, today, with that from Professor Marion Meyer of the Institute for Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna.

Athena and her foster child

The tale of a boy born of the Earth and raised by Athena is the Ur-Mythos of Athens.

In early times its focus was the correlation of nature and civilization - Gaia (the Earth) comprising everything which occurred naturely (procreation, birth, growth), Athena comprising everything which needed techne (knowledge, training, education).

A later version included Hephaistos and thus broke the balance of Gaia and Athena. Erechtheus obtained a father, Gaia was reduced to the role of mortal women (giving birth after having conceived), and Athena was highlighted (as the trigger of every move).

Still later, the myth was told for a figure named Erichthonios (derived from Erechtheus). This is the version shown in images. As the new name is not attested before the second half of the 5th century, this innovation was dated to the Classical period (but actually occurred a little earlier).

In the course of time the role of Athena´s foster child changed: Erechtheus was (and remained) Athena´s prime cult associate on the Acropolis. Erichthonios, however, was the prototype of an Athenian and conveyed the notion that all Athenians were children of Athena. It is the purpose of the paper to present the varying views of Athena and her foster child as the result of a continuous process of “making” the city goddess.

Speakers and topics - Athena: Sharing Current Research

I'm delighted to announce our speakers and topics. I look forward to welcoming to Roehampton current researchers from seven (a good Athena-related number...) European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK. This running order is provisional. I'm aiming to finalise the programme by 20th May.

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Marion Meyer, University of Vienna, “Athena and her foster child”     

Maciej Paprocki, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, “Trickster Athena as a granddaughter of Okeanos and Tethys"

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Ellie Mackin, King’s College London, “Weaving Athena: An object-focused study of girls and women approaching Athena as a poliadic deity”

Bartłomiej Bednarek, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, “Bringing stools to Athena?”

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Manon Champier, Université Toulouse-2-Jean Jaurès, “Athena in official images in the French 19th century"
Amanda Potter, Open University, UK, “Goddess of Wisdom, Warfare and Knitting: Athena in the Popular Imagination"

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Alessandra Abbattista, University of Roehampton, London and Fabio Lo Piparo Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, “The two folds of Athena’s garment: military and maternal aegis in Euripides’ Ion"

Owen Rees, Manchester Metropolitan University, “The disappearance of Athena from classical warrior-departure scenes"

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Sandya Sistac, Université Toulouse-2-Jean Jaurès, “‘Her do thou smite’ (Il. 5.132): a preliminary study of the relationships between Athena and Aphrodite in Homeric epic”

Christopher Lillington-Martin, University of Reading and Summer Fields, Oxford “Symbolism of Athena, and her metamorphoses, by means of the olive, in Homer’s Odyssey and Procopius’ Wars"

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Marianne Kleibrink and Elizabeth Weistra, University of Groningen, “Cult in context: an early Athena in Calabria?”

Ingo Schaaf, University of Konstanz, “Kyria Athenais: Transformations of Pallas and Parthenon in Late Antique Athens”

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Chairs: Susan Deacy, Tony Keen, José Magalhaes, University of Roehampton, London

 

 

*Athena: Sharing New Research* - booking now open

Registration is now open for the conference - which takes place a month today! Click here to sign up.

Updates on twitter @AthenaSharing
#AthenaUR

Information on speakers and topics to follow asap.
 

Call for Papers reminder

There's still time to offer a paper!

Athena: Sharing Current Research
3rd June 2016, Adam Room, Grove House, University of Roehampton, London

If you'd like to offer a paper (of c. 20 minutes) - please send title plus c. 200-word abstract by 30 April 2016. All welcome to present/attend, esp. postgraduate students.

This conference will share current research on a deity that has been a topic of interest since the dawn of classical scholarship and through its various ‘turns.’ The event will appraise various ways to approach the goddess by drawing together current researchers from the UK, France, Italy, and, we hope, elsewhere. The event takes place at a time of a resurgence of interest in the goddess (evidenced, for instance, by the 2016 edition of the journal Pallas devoted to Athena-related papers). The event will both reflect and appraise this renewed interest.

Envisaged themes to include:

•Athena the networker – polytheism, the pantheon and the ‘Paris School’
•Athena in the city – in antiquity and beyond
•Gendering Athena
•Attributes of Athena
•Athena as warrior deity

I've had a further suggested theme: Athena in neopagan traditions. I'd certainty be happy to receive proposals along the lines of:

*Living Athenas: modern neopagan traditions

Other suggestions welcome. Programme to follow in May.

Comment below, or tweet @AthenaSharing or email s.deacy@roehampton.ac.uk if you'd like to be added to the mailing list - or would like just to make contact!

Athena: Sharing Current Research - initial Notice and Call for Papers

As promised in my previous message, of yesterday, here's the notice I put out via the Classicists List, together with a few annotations.

Initial notice and cfp

Friday June 3rd 2016 (provisional times - 10am-4pm). I'll confirm these once I have a sense of how many potential speakers there are - from initial responses, we look set to have a really good number, and range of participants.

Adam Room, Grove House, University of Roehampton, London This is an ideal location for the event for reasons I'll explain in a future posting.

*All welcome, especially postgraduate students*

This one-day event will share current research on a deity that has been a topic of interest since the dawn of classical scholarship and through its various ‘turns.’ The conference will appraise various ways to approach the goddess by drawing together researchers from the UK, France, Italy, and, we hope, elsewhere. The event takes place at a time of a resurgence of interest in the goddess (evidenced, for instance, by the 2016 edition of the journal Pallas devoted to Athena-related papers). The event aims both to reflect and appraise this renewed interest.

Envisaged themes to include:

• Athena the networker – polytheism, the pantheon and the ‘Paris School’
• Athena in the city – in antiquity and beyond
• Gendering Athena
• Attributes of Athena
• Athena as warrior deity

Other suggestions welcome!

If you would like to offer a paper (of c. 20 minutes), please send title plus c. 200-word abstract to Susan Deacy (s.deacy@roehampton.ac.uk) by 30 April 2016.

Also email Susan Deacy if you would like to be added to the contact list for the event.