Giants, Gladiators and Boogeymonsters: Reading Norman Women in the Alexiad - Canceled
Giants, Gladiators and Boogeymonsters: Reading Norman Women in the Alexiad - Canceled
Date: 9 April 2020 Time: 3.10 pmCanceled
The School of Languages and Cultures invites you to a seminar from the Classics Research Seminar Series presented by Claudia Jardin MA candidate in Classics.
Venue: OK526 (Classics Museum)
The women of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos' court in Anna Komnene's Alexiad have received considerable attention in modern scholarship for the remarkable power they held in twelfth-century Byzantium. Less appreciated by historians and academics than their adversaries, Norman women also feature prominently at a few key points in Komnene's narrative and seem to be part of a larger strategy through which the author recognized and perhaps even celebrated the agency and influence of women in the reign of Alexios. This paper introduces Gaita, Emma of Hauteville and the unfortunate Helena alongside the classical allusions which form a key part of their descriptions in the the text in order to offer some potential interpretations of the significance of Norman women in the Alexiad.
ALL WELCOME