The Seminar
       The seminar examines how women have been represented in art in the Ancient World, how these images have been interpreted over time, and how they might be (re-)interpreted in the light of new, mostly feminist, critical approaches and perspectives on the past that have emerged in recent years.

       The focus is mostly on images of women in pre-Christian societies in prehistoric Europe and in the Eastern Mediterranean (Ancient Egypt, Palestine, Crete, and Greece), with some attention also given to the Celts and other "barbarian" peoples.

       Among the issues to be examined are the perceived place and status of women in ancient societies, the controversial debate over the possible existence of matrilineal social structures in the early historical period in the Eastern Mediterranean, Genesis and Old Testament patriarchy, the nature and identity of female deities, symbols of the female, Amazons, maenads, hetairai, and female sexuality in the ancient world.

Views
       Our understanding of the Prehistoric and Ancient past is colored by various points of view. Anyone living in the United States at the end of the 20th century necessarily has a Euro-American or "western" worldview that is largely the product of prevailing white, male, Judaeo-Christian values and attitudes. It is important to understand that there are other worldviews not only in different parts of the world, but also at different times in history.

       It is a fact that the Prehistoric and Ancient worlds have been excavated and examined largely by men who interpreted what they discovered from a "western" white male point of view. Today there is a willingness to acknowledge that other views exist and that they can offer equally valid interpretations of the past.

       The interpretation of the Prehistoric and Ancient past in male terms is being challenged these days by feminists. If women have views today, then women in the Prehistoric and Ancient past may also have had views, and ideas, and attitudes, and concerns, which may be reflected, contained, or directly represented in art. These, if they exist, have been overlooked because the male observer or researcher is not predisposed on the basis of sex to recognize them.

       The task of reinterpretation is made difficult by the depth to which male views are embedded "western" culture. It is necessary to remind ourselves that the "past is a foreign country" and guard against interpreting the past in the light of our own contemporary views. Even well-meaning feminist researchers bent of recovering lost female identities are weighed down by the baggage of their own culture.

       In this seminar we will try to seek out the presence of women in the art of the Prehistoric and Ancient worlds. We will attempt to identify alternative "female, non-western" points of view and test them out in interpretations of images of women in Prehistoric and Ancient in art.

       This approach will not only generate new views, but will also revive discredited views, such as the possibility that matrilineal cultures prevailed in the prehistoric period and continued into the historical period.

       At the same time, however, we must guard against the desire to substitute new views for the old ones. The point is not to substitute an interpretation we like for one we don't like, to replace a male view with a female view, but to broaden and enrich our range of views, and to acknowledge both the existance and the validity of other ways of seeing and interpreting images of women in Prehistoric and Ancient art.

Exploration
       To a large extent, the seminar is conceived as being less a course of study of already familiar and "pre-digested" material than as an exploration of a series of fundamental questions about familiar objects and images. The aim is to seek out possible alternative readings of images of women in the ancient world. There are no clear answers to these questions. Your instructor does not necessarily "know" the answers, nor does he expect you simply to "learn" whatever answers are encountered in the seminar.

       The alternative views, and the questions they generate, are to be understood as the basis for further critical analysis that goes beyond familiar material.

       One of the aims of the seminar is to develop the ability to become aware of alternative views and to formulate new questions based upon a critical appreciation of those views. The seminar asks you to consider the known, to question it in light of other possible views, and then, with new questions in hand, to explore other possible answers.