2. Whiteness

Second lecture of Professor Dame Mary Beard's Gifford Lecture series

Event details

Date: Tuesday 7 May 2019, 5.30 - 6.30pm

The lecture may be followed by questions.  Latest finishing time is 7pm.

Venue: The Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LH 

Lecture abstract

This lecture moves from the colour of ancient statues to the skin colour of the Greeks and Romans themselves. Why have these issues proved so inflammatory in the study of antiquity? Who is committed to a white vision of the ancient world, and why? It argues not that antiquity was a world before racism, but that its very different ideas about colour (skin and otherwise) can destabilise our own.

Lecture video

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