In the seventh instalment of our video series, Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy discusses migrant women in the ancient Mediterranean, including evidence for their occupation and status, as well as how we study where women in the ancient world emigrated from and immigrated to.
Rebecca Futo Kennedy is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Denison University in Ohio, USA. Her research and teaching focus on issues of race and ethnicity, immigration law and the experience of immigration, especially by women, and women’s labor and experiences in the courts, particularly in 5th and 4th centuries BCE Athens. She also is known for her work on the ways in which ancient ideas of race and ethnicity have been used and repackaged in modern scientific racism and other white supremacist contexts. As a way to unwind, she occasionally publishes and speaks on the tragedies of Aeschylus. Her publications include monographs on Athenian tragedy and on Athenian metics (resident foreigners), edited volumes (Companion to the Reception of Aeschylus and Identity and the Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds (with Molly-Jones Lewis), and a collection of translations, Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Sources (with C. Sydnor Roy and Max Goldman).
Interested in learning more? Check out these resources from Dr. Kennedy:
Kennedy, R.F. 2014. Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City. New York: Routledge. (See the recently released final chapter: “The Epilogue I Never Write: On Finally Coming to a Conclusion“
Interview for a class with Elizabeth Manwell at Kalamazoo on Women and Professions
Blog Post: On Being a [Foreign] Woman in Classical Athens
Blog Post: Immigrants and Cruelty
A Descriptive Transcript for this video can be found HERE
Further Reading
Kennedy, R.F., C. Sydnor Roy, M.L. Goldman, eds. 2013. Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Lefkowitz, M.R., and M.B. Fant. 2016. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome. 4th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Online Resources
Peopling the Past Podcast, Episode #2: Spindles and the City with Dr. Katherine Harrington
“Our Only Goal Will be the Western Shore” course module on immigration in ancient Greece and modern US by Zoe Stamatopoulou
Twitter threads on women immigrants on tombs (1), why women immigrants? (2) preliminary data on a new study of women’s tombs (3) why this research matters (4)
Peopling the Past 