On this episode of the Peopling the Past Podcast, we are joined by Dr. Shelley Haley. Dr. Haley recently retired from Hamilton College, where she was Edward North Chair of Classics and Professor of Africana Studies. She was President of the Society for Classical Studies and is the winner of several teaching awards, including the Samuel and Helen Lang Prize for Excellence in Teaching. She works on Cleopatra, Black feminism and Classics, as well as classical education and African-American women and has published on topics ranging from Roman historiography to the connections between Euripides’ Medea and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
Join us for the final episode of our season on women in the ancient Mediterranean, as we feature the most famous woman in antiquity: Cleopatra! Listen in, as we untangle the image of Cleopatra as a seductive manipulator and challenge assumptions, misconceptions, and preconceived notions about her persona and reign.
Interested in learning more? Check out this related article by Dr. Shelley Haley:
Shelley P. Haley (1993). “Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Re-membering, Re-claiming, Re-empowering”, in Nancy Rabinowitz and Amy Richlin (eds) Feminist Theory and the Classics: 23-43.
How do you Solve a Problem like Cleopatra? : Shelley Haley and the last Egyptian Pharoah – Peopling the Past
- How do you Solve a Problem like Cleopatra? : Shelley Haley and the last Egyptian Pharoah
- These Boots were Made for Walking: Women's Mobility and Migration in the Roman Empire with Marie-Adeline Le Guennec
- (Not so) Risky Business: the Potential Perils of Childbirth in ancient Rome with Anna Bonnell Freidin
- Not a Puella, Not Yet a Femina: Roman Girlhood with Lauren Caldwell
- Do Not Afflict the Widow: the Women of Ancient Nubia with Jacke Phillips
Looking for a transcript of this episode? Click here.
Additional Materials Related to this Podcast
Selected Primary Sources:
Cicero. Letters to Atticus, especially 14.8.1; 14.20.2; 15.1.5; 15.4.4; 15.15.2.
Galen. On Antidotes 8.
Horace. Odes 1.37.
Lucan. On the Civil War 10.1-192; 332-546.
Plutarch. Life of Antony.
Plutarch. Life of Caesar 49.
Selected Secondary Sources:
(Nota bene: Authors marked with an asterisk (*) should be read with a critical eye.)
Sally-Ann Ashton (2008). Cleopatra and Egypt.
*Michael Grant (1972). Cleopatra.
Shelley P. Haley (1993). “Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Re-membering, Re-claiming, Re-empowering”, in Nancy Rabinowitz and Amy Richlin (eds) Feminist Theory and the Classics: 23-43.
Mary Hamer (2008). Signs of Cleopatra: Reading an Icon Historically.
Prudence Jones (2006). Cleopatra: A Sourcebook.
*Duane W. Roller (2010). Cleopatra: A Biography.
*W.W. Tarn and M.P. Charlesworth (1965). Octavian, Antony, and Cleopatra.
Scott Trafton (2004). Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania, especially Chapter Four: “Undressing Cleopatra: Race, Sex, and Bodily Interiority in Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania.”
Susan Walker and Sally Ann Ashton (2003). Cleopatra Reassessed.
Susan Walker and Peter Higgs (2001). Cleopatra of Egypt: from History to Myth.
Peopling the Past 
One thought on “Podcast Season 3, Episode 12: How do you Solve a Problem like Cleopatra? : Shelley Haley and the last Egyptian Pharoah”