Greek Love: Beyond the Veil

Ancient Mediterranean myths and histories continue to be a popular medium through which human diversity is portrayed, and modern LGBTIQA+ communities are approaching myths and histories with a unique lens, drawing out and decoding threads of sexuality, gender and queerness.
Join the Hellenic Museum for its third annual iteration of Greek Love: an evening of history talks, creative collaboration and fun, exploring contemporary revelations of queerness through the conduit of antiquity. Grab a drink and explore the Hellenic Museum galleries before settling in for a series of engaging but light-hearted presentations.
In the spirit of Halloween and LGBTIQA+ History Month, this year’s lineup of classicists and historians will delve into the concepts and meanings of sexuality, gender and queerness, through past and present (re)interpretations of ancient magic and monsters. From witches to werewolves, mad women to magical papyri, Greek Love: Beyond the Veil will look at the so-called ‘darker’ side of queer modality, and explore why LGBTIQA+ people often see themselves in the magical and the monstrous.
Presentations will include:

“Savage, Extreme, Rude, Cruel, Invincible”: Monstrous Femininity from Antiquity to Today; “The Mountain and its Wild Creatures”: Maenads, Magic, and Mayhem in Euripides’ Bacchae; Man, Woman, Werewolf: Subversive Gender in Ancient Greco-Roman Transformation Myths; and Practical Magic: The (Queer) Use of Spells, Curses and Haunted Spaces in the ancient Mediterranean.