Sex and the ancient city: Aspects of sexual intercourse in Greco-Roman antiquity

A CONFERENCE IN HONOUR OF PROFESSOR CHRIS CAREY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

ORGANIZERS: ANDREAS SERAFIM (University of Cyprus) & GEORGE KAZANTZIDIS (University of

Patras) & KYRIAKOS DEMETRIOU (University of Cyprus)
VENUE AND TIME: University of Cyprus, New Campus, 11-13 June 2019, Room: B108
SPONSORS: Department of Social and Political Science & Postgraduate Programme in Gender Studies,
University of Cyprus

CONFERENCE DELEGATES
AFRODITI ATHANASOPOULOU (CYPRUS): “The locus amoenus as an erotic landscape. Some
observations on the development of the topos in the learned and vernacular literature in Greek:
From Achilles Tatius to Voskopula”

Afroditi Athanasopoulou is Assistant Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the Department of

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Cyprus since 2011-12. Her research focuses
on Modern Greek Literature of the 19th and the 20th centuries, Prosody and Metrical analysis, the
Teaching of Literature and the relations between Literature and History. She also is interested in
Linguistic and Cultural Studies, Narratology, and the literary topoi. She has participated in more than
50 international conferences and philological meetings and has published papers related to her
research interests in Greek, English, and Italian, in Journals and collective volumes. She is the author
of History and Literature in Dialogue: An insight into “historical” and “mythical method” in 19th and
20th-century Greek poetry (Thessaloniki, 2016) and the co-author of The Thwarted Utopia. Yannis
Gavrielides, Nikos Karayannis and other Comrades in collaboration with the historians George
Kokkinos and Gavrilis Lambatos (Athens, 2008). She also has translated from Italian the
interdisciplinary monograph of Massimo Peri Malato d’amore. La poesia dei medici e la medicina
dei poeti (Greek edition: Crete University Press, 1999) and is now preparing the Greek edition of
Peri’s monograph on topology, entitled Ma il quatro dov’è? Indagine sul topos delle bellezze
femminili (Pisa 2004), forthcoming. She has collaborated with reputable Greek publishers, such as
the Crete University Press and the Benaki Museum, in editing volumes with significant impact in the
field of Modern Greek Studies, regarding the oeuvre of Solomos, Kalvos, Sikelianos, Cavafy, and
others.

ALLISON GLAZEBROOK (BROCK UNIVERSITY): “An Olynthian Woman in Crisis: Slavery,

Violence, and Sex at the Symposium”
Allison Glazebrook is Professor of Classics at Brock University. Her research centers on women,
gender, and sexuality in ancient Greece, with a special focus on prostitution. She is co-editor of Greek

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Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BCE- 200 CE (U Wisconsin Press, 2011) with
Madeleine Henry; Houses of Ill Repute: The Archaeology of Brothels, Houses, and Taverns in the
Greek World (Penn Press, 2016) with Barbara Tsakirgis; and Themes in Greek Society and Culture:
An Introduction to Ancient Greece (Oxford UP, 2017) with Christina Vester.

ANDREAS FOUNTOULAKIS (CRETE): “Silencing Female Intimacies: Sexuality, Silence and

Cultural Formation in Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 5”
Andreas Fountoulakis is Associate Professor of Greek Literature and Drama and Director of the
Drama and Visual Arts Laboratory of the University of Crete. He graduated with a B.A. in Classics
from the University of Athens, and earned the degrees of M.Phil. and Ph.D. at the University of
Manchester. His research interests focus on Greek tragedy and comedy, ancient popular theatre,
Hellenistic poetry, the Second Sophistic, and the reception of antiquity in Modern Greek literature.
He is the author of Violence and Theatricality: Studies on Violence as a Dramatic Element in
Classical and Post-Classical Greek Tragedy (Manchester, 1995) and In Search of the Didactic
Menander: An Approach to Menander’s Comedy and an Exploration of the Samia (Athens, 2004) [in
Greek]. He is co-editor of Thoughtful Adaptations: Cross-Cultural and Didactic Aspects of Cavafy’s
Poetry (Rethymno, 2007) [in Greek] and Theatre World: Critical Perspectives on Greek Tragedy and
Comedy (Berlin and Boston, 2017). He is also the author of numerous articles published in refereed
journals, edited volumes, and conference proceedings. He is currently working on a monograph on
gender and genre in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans.

ANDREAS SERAFIM (CYPRUS): “A Psychosomatic Vignette of Kinaidos in Greek Literature”

Andreas Serafim a specialist in Greek oratory/rhetoric, law and performance, with a wide range of
other research interests, including ancient Greek religion, reception, linguistics, sex/gender theories,
and other interdisciplinary theories (such as persuasion and humour theories). He obtained a Ph.D.
degree from University College London (2013; supervisor: Chris Carey), and he is currently a
Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cyprus. His first monograph, Attic Oratory and Performance
(Routledge 2017), for the completion of which he was awarded a prestigious Government of Ireland
Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015/16), has been endorsed by Professor Konstantinos Kapparis
(University of Florida) and positively reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Review by Professor Victor
Bers (Yale University). Andreas Serafim has also published the interdisciplinary volume, The Theatre
of Justice: Aspects of Performance in Greco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric (Brill 2017; together with
Sophia Papaioannou and Beatrice da Vela), which received positive reviews from Peter O’Connell
(University of Georgia) and Cristian Criste (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich). The
interdisciplinary character of Andreas’ research is also central to six forthcoming publications: first,
two commentaries on Demosthenes’ Second Olynthiac and Lysias’ Olympic Oration (forthcoming in
September 2019); second, another Routledge monograph, Religious Discourse in Attic Oratory and
Politics (publication expected in 2020); and third, a series of volumes: The Ancient Art of Persuasion
across Genres and Topics (forthcoming in September 2019), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of
Ancient Rhetoric (publication expected in 2020); and The Rhetoric of Unity and Division in Ancient
Literature (publication expected in 2020).

ANTONINI SMYRILLI (CYPRUS): “Queering Helene: Re-reading Euripides’ educational

appropriation”
Antonini Smyrilli is a Ph.D. Candidate in Theory and Philosophy of Education at the University of
Cyprus.

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BARBARA GOLD (HAMILTON COLLEGE): “Were Female Martyrs Transgender?”
Barbara K. Gold is Edward North Professor of Classics Emerita at Hamilton College and Vice
President for Professional Matters of the Society for Classics Studies (SCS). She is the editor of
Literary and Artistic Patronage in Ancient Rome, author of Literary Patronage in Greece and Rome,
and co-editor of Sex and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts: The Latin Tradition, and Roman
Dining. She has published widely on satire, lyric and elegy, feminist theory, sex and gender, comedy,
and late antiquity. Her Blackwell Companion to Roman Love Elegy was published in 2012, and
Roman Literature, Gender and Reception: Domina Illustris (co-edited, Routledge) was published in
2013. Her new book is Perpetua: Athlete of God (Oxford University Press, 2018). Forthcoming is
A Guide to Latin Elegy and Lyric (Blackwell), co-authored with Genevieve Lively.

BARTŁOMIEJ BEDNAREK (WARSAW): “The iconography of soft pornography: allusions to erotic

foreplay in Greek vase painting”
Bartłomiej (Bartek) Bednarek, born 1984, graduated in Classics from the Jagiellonian University in
Kraków (Poland) in 2009. He subsequently pursued his PhD at the same University, spending the
academic year 2010/11 at Università degli studi di Torino (Italy). He defended his thesis Dionysian
Myth in Greek Poetry from Homer to Euripides in January 2015. The book was published (in the
Polish language) in the same year. From 2014 to 2016 he worked as a research assistant in the project
Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greece in the Light of Philological Data (Jagiellonian University), in
2017 publishing a book Animal Sacrifice in Aristophanes and Old Comedy (in the Polish language).
From December 2016 until present he is a post-doc fellow at the Institute of History, University of
Warsaw, with his own project Cultural Palimpsest: The History of the Greek Myth of Lycurgus, the
King of Edonians. He has published on Greek religion and mythology, literature and theatre, gender
and sexuality in ancient Greece, among others in Mnemosyne, Symbolae Osloenses, Hermes,
Classical Philology.

CATALINA POPESCU (OKLAHOMA): “The Womb inside the Male Member- A Lucianic Twist”
Catalina Popescu has a PhD in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin, with a dissertation
on the topic of memory in the Greek tragedy of revenge of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. She
published various articles with Cambridge Scholars Publishing and the University of Bucharest Press
and has written on tragic memory in the "Encyclopaedia of Greek Tragedy" published by Wiley-
Blackwell Press and has an article on Ovid's Pygmalion under contract with Routledge. She has
worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Classics at Texas Tech University and volunteered for the
Museum of TTU and for the University of Bucharest, Department of Classics. Currently she teaches
Latin at Holland Hall College Preparatory Academy in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

CHARILAOS MICHALOPOULOS (THRACE): “Having sex with statues: agalmatophilia in Latin

literature”
Charilaos N. Michalopoulos is Assistant Professor of Latin at the Department of Greek Philology of
the Democritus University of Thrace. He studied Classics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
and the University of Leeds. His research interests include Augustan poetry, Roman Epigram,
Modern Greek reception of Latin literature, Gender Studies and Classics. He is the author of Myth,
Language and Gender in the Corpus Priapeorum (2014). His recent publications include articles on
Ovid, Seneca, Martial and the Corpus Priapeorum. He is an Associate Member of EuGeStA, the
European Network on Gender Studies in Antiquity. He is also actively engaged in the translation of
Latin literature to Modern Greek (Virgil, Horace, the Roman elegists, Martial, the Corpus
Priapeorum).

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CHIARA THUMIGER (WARWICK): “‘Shameful parts’. A late-antique passage on clitoridectomy
and the question of female sexual pleasure in ancient medicine”
Chiara Thumiger has studied and done research in Italy, the UK (London) and Germany (Berlin). Her
past research topics include Greek tragedy (her PhD on Euripides’ Bacchae was published as Hidden
Paths, BICS 2007), ancient views on animals and animal imagery, and ancient representations of
character and mental life, especially the emotions (Eros in Ancient Greece, co-edited with E. Sanders,
OUP 2013) and madness in ancient cultures. In recent years she has turned her interest to history of
medicine, especially with projects on ancient medical ideas on the health of the mind. She published
two co-edited volumes, one on ancient patients (Homo Patiens, Brill 2015, with G. Petridou,) and
one on Mental Illness in Ancient Medicine. From Celsus to Paul of Aegina, Brill 2018, with P. Singer).
Her monograph A History of the Mind and Mental Health in Classical Greek Medical Thought also
came out last year. She currently holds a Wellcome Research Fellowship in Medical Humanities at
Warwick University (Dept. of Classics), with projects on the ancient mental disease Phrenitis and on
ancient ‘holism’.

CHRIS CAREY (LONDON): “Thinking with sex: power, control and self-assertion”
Chris Carey is a British classical scholar, currently Professor Emeritus of Greek at University College
London (UCL). He held the Professorship of Greek at UCL from 2003 until his retirement in 2016.
In April 2000, The Independent named him as one of the “stars of modern classical scholarship”.
Carey began his career at Cambridge University, as a research fellow at Jesus College, before moving
to St Andrews University, where he taught from 1977 to 1991 except for a visiting professorship at
University of Minnesota in 1987–8. While in Minnesota he also taught at Carleton College. In 1991
he was elected Professor of Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London before moving to UCL
to take up the Chair of Greek in 2003. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012.
Carey's PhD was on Pindar and was supervised by P. E. Easterling, John Killen and Sir Denys Page.
Over the years he has also published on lyric poetry, Homer and Athenian law. He completed the
Oxford Text of the orator Lysias, while he is currently under contract to produce a Cambridge
University Press commentary on Book 7 of Herodotus.

CHRISTINA ZACHARIA (CYPRUS): “Male homosocial triangles in the Iliad”

Christina Zacharia has a Master’s degree (M.A.) in Contemporary Theories in Literature and Cinema,
which was awarded from Manchester Metropolitan University, and is currently an M.A. candidate in
Gender Studies at the University of Cyprus.

CHRYSANTHI DEMETRIOU (CYPRUS): “Sex in Ancient Texts and Medieval Monasteries: The
Case of Hrotswitha’s Dulcitius”
Chrysanthi Demetriou studied Classics in Cyprus (BA) and the UK (MPhil Cambridge; PhD Leeds).
She is currently and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Cyprus (Department of Classics and
Philosophy) and an Adjunct Tutor at the Open University of Cyprus (Studies in Hellenic Culture).
Her main research interests revolve around various literary and cultural themes of the comedies of
Plautus and Terence, as well as the survival and influence of Terentian comedy throughout Late
Antiquity as well as in medieval literary and cultural history.

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CHRYSANTHOS CHRYSANTHOU (HEIDELBERG): “‘Do not call me Lord, for I am a Lady’ (Cass.
Dio 80[79]16.5)”
Chrysanthos Chrysanthou received his B.A. in Greek Philology (Classics) from the University of
Athens (2011) and his Master of Studies and doctorate in Classics from Oxford University (2016).
He is currently Lecturer and Research Assistant (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the Department of
Classics of the University of Heidelberg. His main area of scholarly interest is the literary
techniques that Greek prose authors, especially historians and biographers, employ to construct their
narratives. His first book, Plutarch’s Parallel Lives: Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (De
Gruyter, 2018) explores Plutarch’s narrative technique and moral evaluation in the Parallel Lives. At
present he is editing together with Professor Timothy Duff (University of Reading) a volume on
‘Generic Enrichment in Plutarch’s biographies’ and he is also working on several articles on Imperial
historiography, biography, and cognitive classics.

DIMITRIOS KANELLAKIS (OXFORD): “(Con)Figuring Sex and Politics”

Dimitrios Kanellakis has recently completed his thesis on Aristophanes and the Poetics of Surprise
at the University of Oxford, as a scholar of A. S. Onassis and A. G. Leventis Foundations. He is
currently co-editing two volumes: With Mirth and Laughter: Essays in Greek Comedy and The
Pathology of Love in Greek and Roman Literature.

DIMOS SPATHARAS (CRETE): “The ‘wisdom’ of repulsion: ‘filth’ and sex in classical Athens”
Dimos Spatharas teaches Greek Literature at the University of Crete. He recently coedited (with Don
Lateiner) a volume on The Ancient Emotion of Disgust (OUP, 2016), an emotion which he also
explores in a paper which will appear in Angelos Chaniotis (ed.) Unveiling Emotions III
(forthcoming). He is the author of several articles on Athenian law, the Sophists and Attic oratory
and the editor of a commentary on Isocrates’ Against Lochites. He is co-editor (with George
Kazantzidis) of the Trends in Classics-Ancient Emotions sub-series.

EKATERINI SYMEOU (CYPRUS): “Mourning in Judith Butler and Pericles’ Funeral Oration:
reverse itineraries”
Ekaterini Symeou has a Master’s degree (MPhil) in Modern Greek Studies, awarded from the
University of Birmingham. She is currently a PhD Candidate in Gender Studies at the University of
Cyprus.

ELENI VOLONAKI (PELOPONNESE): “Sex, A Topos of Political Loidoria in Athenian Forensic

Oratory”
Eleni Volonaki studied Ancient Greek Literature in the Department of Philology, University of Crete
and continued her postgraduate studies at the Department of Classics, Royal Holloway, University of
London. She did her PhD under the supervision of Christopher Carey [entitled A Commentary on
Lysias’ speeches Against Agoratos (13) and Against Nikomachos (30)], which has been published in
Greek (editions: Papazisi 2010). Research interests focus on Ancient Greek Law, Greek Rhetoric
(esp. forensic and epideictic rhetoric and oratory), Greek values and epic poetry, and Hellenistic
rhetoric.

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EMMA STAFFORD (LEEDS): “Olive oil, dildoes and slippers: Greek sex toys reassessed”
Emma Stafford is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Leeds. She is author of numerous
works on Greek myth, religion and iconography, including the monographs Herakles (Routledge,
2012) and Worshipping Virtues: personification and the divine in ancient Greece (Classical Press of
Wales/Duckworth, 2000), and is coordinator of the Hercules: a Hero for All Ages project
(https://herculesproject.leeds.ac.uk/). Previous work on Greek sexuality includes “Clutching the
chickpea: private pleasures of the bad boyfriend”, in S.D. Lambert (ed.), Sociable Man. Essays in
Greek Social Behaviour in Honour of Nick Fisher (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales), 337-63.

GABRIEL EVANGELOU (CYPRUS): “Sex and disgust in Martial’s Epigrams”

Gabriel Evangelou is a teaching fellow at the University of Cyprus where he has been teaching Latin
since 2016. After the completion of his PhD thesis, entitled Φιλία in Cicero’s Correspondence, in
2015 at the University of Edinburgh, he diverted his attention from Roman philosophy and focused
on the rhetorical use of emotion in Cicero’s letters. His publications include an article entitled
“Reconciling Cicero’s anti-Epicureanism in De Amicitia with his friendship with Atticus” in Latomus
and two chapters in edited volumes (“The use of emotion as persuasion in Cicero’s letters to Atticus”,
and “Coping with adversity: Cicero’s complaints in his letters from exile”). He intends to publish his
revised PhD thesis as a monograph entitled Love, Friendship and Deception in Cicero’s Letters by
2020 at Liverpool University Press. In September 2018 he worked with Dr. D. Spatharas and Dr. S.
Panayotakis at the University of Crete and completed a post-doctoral project entitled
“Representations of repulsion in ancient literature” in which he examined references to disgust and
repulsion from the entire corpus of extant Latin sources. His research interests embrace both Cicero’s
letters and Roman philosophy with equal emphasis on amicitia in the Late Roman Republic. His
current research is on reconciliation in Cicero’s time, while also looking at the evolution of
reconciliation from Homer to St. Augustine.

GEORGE KAZANTZIDIS (PATRAS): “τὴν συνουσίαν εἶναι μικρὰν ἐπιληψίαν: Macrobius and
Foucault on sex and epilepsy”
George Kazantzidis graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and obtained his DPhil
from the University of Oxford, with a thesis on Melancholy in Hellenistic and Latin Poetry. His
interests lie at the crossroads between medicine and literature in antiquity, with a special focus on the
history of mental illness and the emotions. He is currently finishing his monograph on disease in
Lucretius’ De rerum natura and looks forward to moving to his next book project, provisionally
entitled: “Greek and Roman Paradoxography: Medicine, Horror, the Sublime”.

IOANNIS KONSTANTAKOS (ATHENS): “The maiden that knew nothing about sex: A scabrous
theme in novella and comedy”
Ioannis Konstantakos studied classical philology at the Universities of Athens and Cambridge and is
now Associate Professor of Ancient Greek Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens. His scholarly interests include ancient comedy, ancient narrative, folklore, and the relations
between Greek and Near-Eastern literatures and cultures. He has published widely on all these topics.
He has received scholarships from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation and the Onassis
Foundation. In 2009 his two-volume study Akicharos: The Tale of Ahiqar in Ancient Greece (Athens
2008) was awarded the prize of the Academy of Athens for the best monograph in classical philology.
In 2012 his book Legends and Fairytales of the Land of Gold (Athens 2011) was shortlisted for the
Greek state prize for a critical essay.

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JEREMY MCINERNEY (PENNSYLVANIA): “Hephaistos among the Satyrs”
Jeremy McInerney is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and chair of
the Graduate Group in Ancient History. He completed his PhD in 1992 at the University of California,
Berkeley. He is the author of The Folds of Parnassos, a book on state formation in Archaic Greece
and The Cattle of the Sun, a book dealing with the importance of cattle-raising, meat and sacrifice in
the culture of Ancient Greece. He is editor of Blackwell’s Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient
Mediterranean and co-editor of Landscapes of Value: Natural Environment and Cultural
Imagination in Classical Antiquity, published in 2016. In January 2018 Thames and Hudson
published his new volume, Ancient Greece: A New History. He has published more than thirty articles
on topics ranging from gender to epigraphy. Currently he is working on the function of hybridity in
Greek culture, and is also completing a study of Athenians relations with the island of Lemnos as part
of which he reexamines the temple of Hephaistos at Athens. He serves on the Managing Committee
of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, where he was Whitehead Professor in 2013-
14. At the University of Pennsylvania he has won the Ira Abrams teaching award from the School of
Arts and Sciences and the Lindback award from the University.

JOSE MALHEIRO MAGALHAES (ROEHAMPTON): “Human-animal sex in ancient Greece”

Jose Malheiro Magalhaes completed his BA in History in 2013 and his MA in Ancient History in
2015 (with a thesis entitled: Sangue em vinho: o que tem Jesus Cristo que ver com Dioniso?) at the
Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon. He is currently finishing his doctoral studies at the
University of Roehampton, London, where he is exploring the concept of sexual transgression in
Ancient Greece.

JULIE LASKARIS (RICHMOND): “Sex and the cool head”

Julie Laskaris received her doctorate in Classics from the University of California, Los Angeles, 1999
(BA cum laude, Classics, New York University, 1982). Before that, she was a modern dancer in New
York. She is now an associate professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of
Richmond, whose faculty she joined in 1996. Her research interests center on ancient Greek
medicine, and particularly on its intersections with magic, religion, and philosophy. She has served
as president of the Society for Ancient Medicine and Pharmacy, and is a card-carrying member of the
American Civil Liberties Union and of the NAACP. She is a past president of the Virginia State
Conference of the American Association of University Professors.

KONSTANTINOS KAPPARIS (FLORIDA): “Dover, Tops, Bottoms, and the Continuum of Greek
Sexuality”
Kostas Kapparis is Research Foundation Professor and Director of the Centre for Greek Studies at
the University of Florida, USA. He studied with D. M. MacDowell at the University of Glasgow. His
research interests include the Attic Orators, Athenian Law, Greek and Roman Medical Authors,
Women’s History and Gender Studies, and the Social History of the Greco-Roman World. He has
published a commentary on Apollodoros Against Neaira (and also an expanded Modern Greek
commentary of the same speech), a monograph on Abortion in the Ancient World, a large volume on
Prostitution in the Ancient Greek World, a lengthy monograph on Athenian Law and Society, a co-
authored volume entitled Legal Speeches of Democratic Athens, and has co-edited a collection of the
articles of D. M. MacDowell. He has also published a number of articles and book chapters on topics
such as prostitution, citizenship and immigration, gender studies, history of medicine and science,
and textual criticism.

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KREŠIMIR VUKOVIĆ (ZAGREB, CROATIA): “Sex and the Lupercalia: ‘sadistic beating’ or ‘playful
pecks’”?
Krešimir Vuković obtained his doctorate in Classics at the University of Oxford with a thesis on the
Roman foundation myth and the festival of the Lupercalia. He was lecturer at Oxford for several years
and started a postdoctoral research project on the river Tiber as Fellow of the British School at Rome.
He is most passionate about Greek and Roman mythology which he's been researching and teaching
for many years. He published widely on these topics in scholarly journals across the world and is
writing a book on the Lupercalia and the Roman foundation myth for Walter de Gruyter. He organized
several conferences and workshops in the UK, Italy and Croatia where he now teaches at the Catholic
University in Zagreb. He acted as a consultant on a number of research projects and for the Time
magazine.

LESLEY DEAN-JONES (TEXAS): “Citing and Siting Pleasure: seeking and dismissing women’s
testimony in HA X”
Lesley Dean-Jones received her B.A. in Classics from University College London and her PhD from
Stanford. She taught first at Barnard College and Columbia University in New York, and is currently
Associate Professor and Chair of Classics at The University of Texas at Austin. She has published
on ancient medicine, Greek philosophy and literature, and Women in Antiquity. Her book on
Women’s Bodies in Greek Science was published by Oxford University Press in 1994 and she recently
co-edited Ancient Concepts of the Hippocratic for Brill with Ralph Rosen. Her text, translation and
commentary of Historia Animalium Book X will be out in the Cambridge Classical Texts and
Commentaries series next year.

MARCEL LYSGAARD LECH (DENMARK): “Sexual imagery and forced feminization in

Aristophanes’ Knights”
Marcel Lysgaard Lech is associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark. He received his
PhD. at the University of Copenhagen in 2011 with his dissertation on the chorus of Aristophanes’
Knights. He has published on Greek tragedy and comedy, and has translated Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides and Aristophanes into Danish.

MARIA XANTHOU (HARVARD CHS/BRISTOL): “Archilochus’ P. Colon. 7511 (fr. 196a W.): The
violation of sexual norms, premature ejaculation outside the female body, and the #metoo
movement”
Maria Xanthou, FHEA, is a Research Associate in Pindaric Studies at Harvard CHS, teaches history
of Greek civilization and culture at the Hellenic Open University, and is a Senior Research Associate
at the University of Bristol. She currently completes her commentary on Pindar’s epinician odes to
be published by Harvard CHS. Her main publications include a commentary on Isocrates’ On the
Peace and Against the Sophists, a monograph on the use of asyndeton in Pindar and Bacchylides, and
numerous articles on archaic choral poetry (Stesichorus, Pindar), Attic Comedy (Aristophanes), 19th
c. German classical scholarship, History of Emotions, and E-learning. Her interests lie within the
intersection of ancient history, material culture, and classical philology, and include epichoric
identities in the coastline of Northern Greece, resilience in ancient communities and urban clusters,
Greek lyric poetry, both monodic and choral (Stesichorus, Pindar, and Bacchylides), Aristophanic
and Attic comedy (5th c. BCE), Attic rhetoric (Isocrates), history of classical scholarship (German
classical scholarship of the 19th c.), textual criticism, literary theory, ancient theory of rhetoric
(definition and use of asyndeton), and e-learning. Maria has been awarded individual research
scholarships and fellowships from Harvard CHS, University of Oxford, Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki Academic Excellence Scheme, Hellenic State Scholarships Foundation, and Nicos and
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Lydia Trichas Foundation for Education and European Culture. She taught Greek language and
literature at the University of Leeds, Ancient History at the University of Bristol, and Greek and Latin
languages, Literature, Ancient History, and Digital Classics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
She was an Adjunct Lecturer at the Open University of Cyprus and worked as a Research Associate
of the Centre for Greek Language, Thessaloniki.

MIKE EDWARDS (LONDON): “Carey on Sex”

Mike Edwards has recently retired, after being Professor of Classics at Queen Mary, University of
London, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and the University of Roehampton, where he
was Head of Humanities. He was also Director of the Institute of Classical Studies in the University
of London, and Acting and Deputy Dean of the School of Advanced Study, and he is the immediate
Past President of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric. His primary research interest
is in the Attic Orators, on whom he has published extensively, including commentaries on Antiphon,
Andocides and Lysias, and a translation for the Texas series of the speeches of Isaeus. With Chris
Carey, he was centrally involved in the publication of the fragmentary text of Hyperides’ speech
Against Diondas discovered in the Archimedes Palimpsest, and he has recently completed a
translation of Lycurgus’ Against Leocrates for Joseph Roisman’s OUP commentary on the speech.
He is currently preparing an Oxford Classical Text of Isaeus and a commentary on Aeschines’ speech
Against Ctesiphon, as well as co-editing volumes on forensic narrative, the agōn in Greek literature,
Quintilian, and the reception of classical rhetoric. In addition, he has published on Plutarch’s Lives of
Caesar, Pompey and Cicero, the English philosopher/scientist Francis Bacon, and Latin poetry, co-
editing a three-volume edition and translation of Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid, with two volumes of
the Silvae in preparation.

NICOLAS SIRON (PARIS): “Eyes wide shut. Witnesses of an orgy: participants or spectators?”
Nicolas Siron defended in 2017 his PhD thesis entitled “Témoigner et convaincre. Le dispositif de
vérité dans les discours judiciaires de l’Athènes classique” (supervisor: Violaine Sebillotte Cuchet,
Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). It will be published by the Éditions de la Sorbonne in 2019. He is now
associate member of the ANHIMA Research Center (Anthropologie et Histoire des Mondes Anciens).

RANIA IAKOVOU (CYPRUS): “Besieging effeminacy or gender trouble? Reading Bacchae”

Rania Iakovou received two Master’s degrees, Maîtrise en Lettres Classiques και DEA en Lettres
Classiques from Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3.

REGINA HÖSCHELE (TORONTO): “Statues as sex objects”

Regina Höschele is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto. Her research is
centered around post-Classical Greek literature, with a special focus on ancient epigram books and
erotic texts. She is currently completing a monograph on the Garland of Philip and working on a
book-length study of agalmatophilia in Antiquity.

ROSALIA HATZILAMBROU (ATHENS): “Asexuality in the Greek Papyrus Letters”

Rosalia Hatzilambrou is Assistant Professor in Ancient Greek Philology in the Department of Classics
at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is the author of Isaeus’ On the Estate of
Pyrrhus (2018). Her Ph.D. thesis on a selection of unpublished Greek papyri from Oxyrhynchus was
published in separate volumes of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Her research interests include Attic

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oratory, Greek rhetoric, and Greek papyrology, and she has published a number of articles in each of
these areas.

SABIRA HAJDAREVIĆ (CROATIA): “Sexuality and Sexual Practices in Greek Fictional

Epistolography”
Sabira Hajdarević was born in 1977 in Makarska, Croatia. She studied at the Department of Classical
Philology in Zadar, Croatia from 1996 to 2001. She has been working at the Department since April
2005. She teaches Greek literature, Greek epistolography, literary seminars (Sophocles,
Aristophanes) and courses/classes related to analysis and translation of Greek texts (various authors).
She completed her PhD thesis entitled Umijeće varijacije u Aristenetovim Ljubavnim pismima (The
Art of Variation in Aristaenetus' Erotic Letters) in 2013. Areas of her scientific interest are: Greek
fictional epistolography, Greek sexuality, erotica, erotic metaphors and literary onomastics. She
published six papers: Sexual Initiative in Aristaenetus' Erotic Letters (Systasis,, 32, 1–24, 2018.),
Imenovanje korespondenata u Aristenetovim Ljubavnim pismima: tradicija i inovacija (Hum, 12, 17-
18, 368–390, 2017.), Alciphron's Erotic Vocabulary used as Evidence of (Dis)Unity of his Work
(Systasis, 31, 1–20, 2017.), Ljubav i nasilje u Alkifronovim Pismima (SIC: časopis za književnost,
kulturu i književno prevođenje, 7, 2, 1–22, 2017.), Grčke fikcionalne zbirke pisama u kontekstu;
čimbenici razvoja i obilježja književne (pod)vrste (Latina et Graeca 26, 9-24, 2015.) and Aristenet,
Ljubavna pisma – izbor (SIC, 5, 1, 1–5, 2014.). She presented her papers at six conferences: “Gender
Relations in Aristaenetus' Erotic Letters”, Athens, Greece, 2017, “Teofilatkova Pisma – nastavak
tradicije, inovacija ili dezintegracija književne podvrste?”, Zadar, Croatia, 2017, “The Originality of
Alciphron’s Erotic Metaphors and their Value as Evidence of (dis)Unity of his Work”, Nice, France,
2016, “The World of Erotic Metaphors of Alciphron and Aristaenetus”, Athens, Greece, 2016,
“Vodena” metaforika u službi erotike u grčkoj fikcionalnoj epistolografiji”, Zadar, Croatia, 2015, and
“Imenovanje korespondenata u grčkoj fikcionalnoj epistolografiji i Aristenetove inovacije”, Zadar,
Croatia, 2014.

SPYRIDON TZOUNAKAS (CYPRUS): “Sexual Language and Literary Criticism in Persius’ First
Satire: The Case of Some Double Entendres”
Spyridon Tzounakas completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of
Athens supported by a State scholarship. He is now Associate Professor of Latin Literature at the
University of Cyprus. His main research interests include: Literature of the Neronian period, Roman
Satire (especially Persius), Roman Epic (especially Lucan and Valerius Flaccus), Roman
Epistolography (especially Pliny the Younger), Cicero’s Orations, Roman Elegy (especially
Tibullus), Latin Historiography, Roman Stoicism. He has published many articles in international
refereed journals (e.g. Classical Quarterly, Classical World, Philologus, Hermes, Museum
Helveticum, Symbolae Osloenses, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie) and collective volumes, he
has edited a book on praises of Roman leaders and completed a book on the Greek words in Persius’
Satires, while he is currently working on a book on Pliny the Younger.

STEPHANOS EFTHYMIADIS (CYPRUS) & CHARIS MESSIS (ATHENS): “From Plato’s to Methodios’
Symposium and to the Passio Nerei et Achillei (BHG 1317): ‘female’ readings of male sexuality”
Stephanos Efthymiadis is Professor in Byzantine Studies at the Open University of Cyprus. He has
published numerous studies on Byzantine hagiography, historiography and prosopography. He is the
editor of the two-volume Companion to Byzantine Hagiography and is currently working on a book
on the Social History of Hagia Sophia of Constantinople.

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Charis Messis holds a PhD in Byzantine Studies from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences
Sociales (Paris) and now teaches at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His research
interests concern Byzantine history and literature, especially the history of gender, along with other
social and anthropological aspects of the Byzantine world. He is the author and co-editor of several
books and articles on such topics.

THOMAS K. HUBBARD (TEXAS): “Group Sex, Exhibitionism/Voyeurism and Male

Homosociality”
Thomas K. Hubbard received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1980 and is currently the James R. Dougherty,
Jr. Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas, Austin. He has authored numerous
books and articles on Greek and Roman literature. Among his works on ancient sexuality are
Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents (California 2003) and an
edited Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities (Wiley 2014). He is currently writing on Greek
masculinity.

VASILEIOS LIOTSAKIS (HEIDELBERG): “Hermaphrodites and Sexual Intercourse in Hellenistic

and Imperial Literature”
Vasileios Liotsakis studied Greek Philology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
(BA, MA) and received his Doctoral Degree at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He worked
as Visiting Lecturer of Ancient Greek Language and Literature at Boğaziçi University of Istanbul
(2015-2016) and is currently working as a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter / Alexander-von-Humboldt
Post-Doctoral Fellow at Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg, while also being a Fellow of the
Centre of Hellenic Studies (Harvard University) – AUTH. His research interests include Classical
historiography, the Second Sophistic, Egyptian literature and culture and narratology. He is the author
of articles on these topics and of the monograph Redeeming Thucydides’ Book VIII. Narrative Artistry
in the Account of the Ionian War (Berlin/ Boston), and the co-editor of the collective volume The Art
of History. Literary Perspectives on Greek and Roman Historiography (Berlin/ Boston). He has
recently completed his second monograph entitled History and Characterization. Arrian’s Literary
Portrait of Alexander the Great (forthcoming), which deals with Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander.

VASSILIOS VERTOUDAKIS (ATHENS): “Sex with boys or with women? Erotic dilemmas and
sexual preferences in the Greek Anthology”
Vassilios P. Vertoudakis is Assistant Professor of Ancient Greek Philology in the School of
Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He studied Classics in Athens,
Heidelberg and Thessaloniki (Ph.D. 1996). Since 1999 he has been a tutor at the Hellenic Open
University (Program: Studies in Greek Culture). Research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg
(2002). Visiting Professor at the University of La Laguna, Tenerife/Spain and the Tbilisi State
University, Georgia. Since 2012-13 he has taught at the University of Athens. Among his interests
are the Greek epigram, the erotic literature and the reception of classical antiquity. He has published
three books and numerous articles in academic journals.

ZELIA GREGORIOU (CYPRUS): “Outside Diotima’s Educational Matrix: Silenic Remains in

Plato’s Symposium”
Zelia Gregoriou holds a PhD in Philosophy of Education, University of Illinois in Urbana-
Champaign, MA in Philosophy of Education, MA minor in Gender Studies and postgraduate diploma
in Criticism and Interpretive Theory She has taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
at Georgia Southern University, at the University of Nicosia (Director of the Educational Studies
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Program) and, since 2000, she is teaching at the University of Cyprus, Department of Education. Her
teaching covers subjects of critical pedagogy, history of education, politics and theories of
intercultural education, and postcolonial theory. Her philosophical studies focus on the ethics of
difference and poststructuralist framings of subjectivity and responsibility, with particular interest in
the writings of Derrida, Levinas, Foucault and Agamben. As a philosopher of education, she is
interested in developing new links between philosophy and education, analyzing and evaluating
educational goals, frameworks of policy and school cultures, and developing new idioms of
educational theory. Her current research focuses on discourse analysis of intercultural education
(technologies of bio-politics in tolerance and migrant integration), gender and integration politics,
and pedagogical mourning (with emphasis on the memorialisation and transfer of trauma;
responsibility as unfinished mourning).

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