The International Ovidian Society's panel at the 2025 Society for Classical Studies Annual Meeting, "The Heroides and Their Tradition", will take place on Friday, January 3, 2025, from 8 to 10.30 am (EST) in a hybrid format: in person (Room 401/403) and online via Zoom.

This panel explores the Heroides of Ovid, a work experiencing a renaissance of scholarly activity in the last few decades to which this panel will contribute from a variety of philological and interdisciplinary angles. While it is undeniable that works like the Metamorphoses have dominated Ovidian scholarship, scholarly activity on the Heroides has seen an uptick in recent years: a search for "Heroides" on L'Année Philologique shows 25 articles and chapters focusing on or treating the Heroides published in just the last four years (e.g., Funsten 2022, Leventi 2022, Martorana 2022), with at least five monographs focusing specifically on the Heroides in the last 20 or so years (Martorana 2024, Drinkwater 2022, Fulkerson 2005, Lindheim 2003, Spentzou 2003). The papers of this panel contribute to this trend by exploring and unraveling some of the complexities of Ovid's Heroides and illustrating how they are fruitful material for (re-)examination from fresh angles and perspectives. These papers span a breadth of possible approaches to the Heroides, from philological close reading to interdisciplinary explorations, from situations of the Heroides within the ancient world to investigations of the poems’ modern receptions, with analyses and conclusions that contribute substantively to the growing body of scholarship on the Heroides and their traditions.

Presenters and Papers

*   Shona Edwards (University of Adelaide), "Dido's Swan Song: Poetic Legacy in Ovid's Heroides 7"
*   Sebastian Hyams (Oxford University), "The Limitations of Male Authorship: The Construction of Gender and Female Experience in  Ovid, Heroides 16-21"
*   Millie Marriott (Universities of Bristol and Exeter), "15 Heroines: The Digital World of Ovid’s Heroines"
*   Emma Scioli (University of Kansas), "Intercorporeality and the Rhetoric of the Body in Heroides 13"
*   Ashley Walker (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "Epistolarity in Early Modern Illustrations of Ovid’s Heroides"

Organizers

Alicia Matz (San Diego State University) and Daniel Libatique (Fairfield University)

Location and Time

*   Friday, January 3, 2025, from 8 to 10:30am (Eastern / Philadelphia time)
*   Hybrid: in person (Room 401/403) and online (via Zoom)

Bibliography

*   Drinkwater, Megan O. 2022. Ovid’s Heroides and the Augustan Principate. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
*   Fulkerson, Laurel. 2005. The Ovidian Heroine as Author: Reading, Writing, and Community in the Heroides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*   Funsten, Grace. 2022. “Cydippe Defixa: An Examination of Ovid's Magical Language in Heroides 21.” Classical Journal 117.4: 438-453.
*   Leventi, Maria. 2022. “The Hero’s Narrative in Ovid’s Heroides 9 and 13.” Illinois Classical Studies 47.1: 74-101.
*   Lindheim, Sara H. 2003. Mail and Female: Epistolary Narrative and Desire in Ovid’s Heroides. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
*   Martorana, Simona. 2022. “Omission and Allusion: When Statius' Hypsipyle Reads Ovid's Heroides 6.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 112: 437-464.

*   Martorana, Simona. 2024. Seeking the Mothers in Ovid's Heroides. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

*   Spentzou, Efrossini. 2003. Readers and Writers in Ovid's Heroides: Transgressions of Genre and Gender. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.