Welcome to a livetweet of our weekly meeting. Today, we will be discussing sexual violence in Ovid's Metamorphoses, as well as broader issues of politics in the classroom. CW: sexual assault, violence, misogyny
@ala_Camillae: scholarship on Ovid can have blindspots. When we describe Ovid as at his wittiest when describing sexual assault/violence, we have to be careful to not imitate him by using 'witty' phrasing in our scholarship when discussing rape.
@duxfeminafacti9: Some issues I came across in scholarship. Is Ovid pornographic? Is scholarship on Ovid metapornographic? @i_nurmi: pornography is a divisive topic in feminism
@Brododaktylos: what about framing these texts as texts that delight in violence. But are there problems in conflating sex with violence? What about BDSM culture?
@duxfeminafacti9: some scholarship tries to distinguish between Ovid's 'persona' and the historical Ovid as a way of excusing Ovid's depiction of sexual violence, but this seems inappropriate. @i_nurmi: the persona is relevant to the Ars Amatoria, but not relevant to the Met.
@ala_Camillae: a good classroom environment doesn't whitewash rape, doesn't make it overly explicit, brings out how the women would have felt, the political context. Acknowledges how these stories may be appropriated
@i_nurmi: I really like the idea of holding Ovid's texts up to political scrutiny, because this is very relevant today, I mean literally today, as we are holding accounts of sexual assault up to political scrutiny. Even if Ovid's rape is a metaphor, he chose rape as his metaphor
@Brododaktylos: just as content is never arbitrary vis-a-vis the Met, neither is the content of our syllabi. @i_nurmi: we need to recognize that everything is political, including being apolitical.
Cohort: when beginning to teach, I was taught to be 'neutral' in the classroom, but what does that mean? Do I ignore issues? @ala_Camillae : it's important to connect ancient texts to modern circumstances @i_nurmi : students react well to drawing connections with modern events
Cohort: Keeping politics out of the classroom is useful insofar as you're not imposing your specific views or preventing complexity. The line is crossed when bringing concept to specific case.
@mercury_witch: I usually avoid political opinions myself, but engage with students when they do draw these connections and interrogate these connections. @i_nurmi: yes, there are power dynamics in the classroom. You can interrogate students, but they can't interrogate you.
Cohort: when bringing up political connections, I try to give students the interpretative moment. "What does this make you think of today?" Cohort : when you adopt a persona of multiplicity, of objectivity, you instantly become politicized to students in the classroom.
@ala_Camillae: objectivity is a form of privilege. For example, in discussing ancient vs. modern american slavery, as a white instructor we can view it as a period of history, but generational trauma survives for black students
@ala_Camillae: when we're discussing ancient depictions of sexual violence, we have to be aware that there are women readers/listeners, women that would undoubtedly see wall paintings, art, that prominently feature sexual violence
@mercury_witch: there's a kneejerk reaction among scholars to view passages sympathetic to women as 'funny', but this ignores 50% of the population
@ala_Camillae: what about survivors of rape in the Met that give eloquent speeches (cf. Philomela)? These scenes would resonate with Romans that can relate to these experiences.
@mercury_witch: what about Medicamina Faciei Femineae? Can we really view this is a text intended to let a solely male audience trash women?
@duxfeminafacti9: or the 3rd book of Ars Amatoria addressed to women?
@duxfeminafacti9: or the 3rd book of Ars Amatoria addressed to women?
@i_nurmi: beyond how women in the ancient world reacted to these scenes, we need to consider how our students react to this material. @Brododaktylos: as educators, we need to be aware that these painful issues can boil over in us.
Cohort: we need to be willing to admit when we're uncomfortable with these topics. @mercury_witch: yes, we need to be willing to address discomfort, but if we're discussing sexual violence, we need to tread carefully re: personal experience. We are mandatory reporters.
@i_nurmi: regarding scholarship, we need to be aware that students will believe what they read in print, and so we need to encourage students to interrogate the primary text and interrogate the secondary
@ala_Camillae: regarding the question of 'should we read Ovid?', we have to acknowledge that these texts are a source of interest for students. @Brododaktylos: further, we need to acknowledge that students going on in their studies need to know these texts, however problematic
Cohort: and by ignoring Ovid, we're whitewashing Roman culture. @ala_Camillae: We should be cautious of speaking of ancient women in broad terms. Women in antiquity were complicit in this as well, cf. depictions of ancient dominae.
A wide-ranging conversation. Live-tweets by @rympasco.
