* Use this link to join our virtual program: https://us02web .zoom.us/j/82235295222
\nMarch is Women's Hi story Month.
\nShe is the most beautiful woman in the world . She is the daughter of a god. She is the cause of a war. She ran away\; she was kidnapped\; she never went to Troy at all. Few mythic names have c aptivated readers and thinkers so enduringly as that of Helen of Troy\, fa med for her remarkable beauty and her troubling behavior. Often regarded i n contemporary literature as equal parts casus belli and femme fatale\, He len is the subject of centuries&rsquo\; worth of debate surrounding whethe r she was kidnapped or left willingly for Troy and what her elusive mythic figure really represents. This program will provide an outline of the myt h as it appears in \; antiquity\, as well as an introduction to the in terpretations and re-interpretations of Helen in the millennia since she f irst appeared at her loom in Homer&rsquo\;s "Iliad". We will discuss the p otential Indo-European origins of the myth\, the conflicting ancient accou nts of Helen&rsquo\;s life and mysterious death\, and the most famous pres entations of her&mdash\;ancient and modern&mdash\;as we explore how it is that one woman can be the source of a thousand stories.
\nPresenter:
Gabrielle Roehr is a doctoral candidate in Classical Studies at the Unive
rsity of Pennsylvania. She received her B.A. (summa cum laude\, Phi Beta K
appa) with high honors in Classics and a minor in Art History from New Yor
k University in May of 2020. Her senior thesis\, titled &ldquo\;The Archai
c Present: Nostalgia and Ideology in the Age of Augustus\,&rdquo\; examine
d the intersection of art and politics and the creation and maintenance of
ideology in Augustan Rome\, with special attention paid to Vergil&rsquo\;
s Aeneid\, Livy&rsquo\;s Ab Urbe Condita\, the Forum Augustum\, and the Mo
numentum Ancyranum. She began the PhD program in Classical Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania \;in September of the same year. Her resear
ch interests include narrative and
storytelling in Greek and Latin po
etry\, the relationship between weaving and poetry\, and contemporary rece
ption of ancient myth. Her in-progress dissertation (working title: &ldquo
\;A Thousand Stories: Helen and Narrative Tension and Instability&rdquo\;)
examines Helen of Troy as narrator and object of narrative in Homer\, Att
ic tragedy\, and Latin poetry as well as in twentieth and twenty-first cen
tury anglophone adaptations of the Helen myth.
At the conclusion o
f the program please feel free to take a brief online survey here: https://www.projectoutco
me.org/responses/81442
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