Videos by Connie Skibinski
This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 10:... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 10: Amazons. This video outlines the dominant scholarly interpretations of Amazons, as well as new approaches which challenge the traditional scholarly consensus. 5 views
This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World) Week 10: ... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World) Week 10: Amazons. This video provides an overview of the Amazons' key traits, drawing upon ancient written and visual sources. 52 views
This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 7: ... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 7: Heroes. This video provides an extended case study of Achilles, outlining how he satisfies the Iliadic Hero trope. This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 9: ... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 9: Heroines. This video provides an extended case study of the heroine Atalanta 7 views
This lecture sat within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 7: Heroes. T... more This lecture sat within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 7: Heroes. This video introduces the Heroic Pattern framework that was then used to analyse ancient hero narratives. 76 views
This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 7: ... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 7: Heroes. This video provides a framework for understanding and interpreting the Iliadic Hero. 3 views
This video was situated within the AHIS2500 course (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 4: Th... more This video was situated within the AHIS2500 course (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 4: The Divine Feminine. In this video, I introduce students to the concept of syncretism through the case study of Astarte and Circe 7 views
For the Antiquity in Media Studies 2022 Conference, myself and Rebecca Willis co-authored a prese... more For the Antiquity in Media Studies 2022 Conference, myself and Rebecca Willis co-authored a presentation on our use of contemporary media in the course AHIS3663. In this presentation, we outline the pedagogical approaches we employed in our teaching, as well as the benefits of utilising contemporary media to teach literary theories such as postmodernism and postcolonialism. 9 views
This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 9: ... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 9: Heroines. This video began the lecture, providing an overview of key categories of heroines in ancient Greek mythology and literature 29 views
This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 10:... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 10: Amazons. This video examines the portrayal of the ancient Amazons in contemporary media, using the case studies of Wonder Woman and Old Guard 26 views
This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 10:... more This lecture was situated within the course AHIS2500 (Myths of the Ancient Greek World), Week 10: Amazons. This video analyses Amazons and their parallels to ancient Greek hero narratives, through an extended case study comparing Penthesilea and Achilles. 46 views
In this bonus resource for AHIS2500, Dr Bob Cowan (The University of Sydney) unpacks ecofeminism ... more In this bonus resource for AHIS2500, Dr Bob Cowan (The University of Sydney) unpacks ecofeminism and the possibilities of applying an ecofeminist lens to ancient material 3 views
Papers by Connie Skibinski
Lilith A Feminist History Journal, Dec 18, 2023
The 2023 volume of Lilith is the first to be produced under the Managing Editorship of Alison Dow... more The 2023 volume of Lilith is the first to be produced under the Managing Editorship of Alison Downham Moore, a global, medical, sexuality and gender historian from Western Sydney University who took over in September 2022 from Alana Piper. While Lilith has always been open to contributors from different world regions and authors working on any geographical or temporal field of historical studies, this volume evinces an enrichment of Lilith's commitment to diversity and global scope, while still maintaining its important base for emerging scholarship in Australian feminist historical studies. The past year has seen the Lilith Editorial Collective welcome several new members who have contributed to this introduction and shepherded the articles contained in this volume of the journal. We have also farewelled others, including Rachel Caines, Brydie Kosmina, Lauren Samuelsson, Jennifer Caligari, Kate Davison and Michelle Staff, whom we thank heartily for their service. Moore's editorial stewardship and the new collective bring both a renewed commitment to encouraging underrepresented voices in historical writing, including First Nations voices, providing additional support for scholars with first languages other than English, and extending a new experimental invitation to consider works of scholarship in novel genres of writing for academic journals.
Thersites, 2023
Abstract The Amazons have a long legacy in literature and the visual arts, extending from antiqui... more Abstract The Amazons have a long legacy in literature and the visual arts, extending from antiquity to the present day. Prior scholarship tends to treat the Amazons as hos-tile ‘Other’ figures, embodying the antithesis of Greco-Roman cultural norms. Recently, scholars have begun to examine positive portrayals of Amazons in contemporary media, as role models and heroic figures. However, there is a dearth of scholarship examining the Amazons’ inherently multifaceted nature, and their subsequent polarised reception in popular media. This article builds upon the large body of scholarship on contemporary Amazon narratives, in which the figures of Wonder Woman and Xena, Warrior Princess dominate scholarly discourse. These ‘modern Amazon’ figures epitomise the dominant contemporary trend of portraying Amazons as strong female role models and feminist icons. To highlight the complexity of the Amazon image in contemporary media, this article examines the representation of the Amazons in the Supernatural episode ‘Slice Girls’ (S7 E13, 2012), where their portrayal as hostile, monstrous figures diverges greatly from the positive characterisation of Wonder Woman and Xena. I also consider the show’s engagement with ancient written sources, to examine how the writers draw upon the motifs of ancient Amazon narratives when crafting their unique Amazon characters. By contrasting the Amazons of ‘Slice Girls’ to contemporary figures and ancient narratives, this article examines how factors such as feminist ideology, narrative story arcs, characters’/audience’s perspectives and male bias shape the representation of Amazons post-antiquity.
WOMEN IN CLASSICAL VIDEO GAMES - (J.) Draycott, (K.) Cook (edd.) Women in Classical Video Games. Pp. xii + 271, figs, ills. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. Cased, £95, US$130. ISBN: 978-1-350-24191-6
The Classical Review
Connie Skibinski Honours Thesis - The University of Sydney, 2019
What are the Amazons, and how should we understand their identity and mode of being throughout th... more What are the Amazons, and how should we understand their identity and mode of being throughout the Greek mythic corpus? The aim of this thesis is to build upon the work of previous scholars, as there is still much that can be said about the Amazons. Although most prior scholarship analyses the depiction of Amazons by 5th and 4th century BCE authors – Herodotus, Ephorus and Lysias – as well as iconography on 5th century Athenian public buildings, the Amazon mythic corpus is far greater in scope. I posit that scholars who focus exclusively on Amazon portrayals from this period run the risk of overly historicising the mythic figures by adopting an Othering framework and conflating the Amazons with the Persians. In contrast, I undertake a close reading of Quintus’ portrayal of the Amazons in PostHomerica, against the background of a wider range of relevant sources from the 6th century BCE to the Second Sophistic. In doing so, I argue that the Amazons are not always portrayed as subversive figures, nor do they solely occupy a mode of being which is explicitly antithetical to Greek societal norms. Rather, this thesis foregrounds numerous ancient accounts which portray the Amazons as heroic semi-divine figures, thus prompting a reinterpretation of Amazon ontology. Overall, my approach to Amazon ontology is unique in that I emphasise the complexity and multifaceted nature of the Amazonian γένος, analysing them as figures with their own complex mode of being, rather than as mere non-Greeks. In particular, this thesis argues that the Amazons navigate the human-divine binary opposition, and that this opposition is mediated through the animal as a third mode of existence.
Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens (Blog), 2021
https://aaia.sydney.edu.au/amazons-ancient-warrior-women-as-powerful-role-models-for-women-today/... more https://aaia.sydney.edu.au/amazons-ancient-warrior-women-as-powerful-role-models-for-women-today/
Imagine a society run by women for women, where men are only used for breeding purposes. Women who can rule themselves, found distant lands, and beat men in battle. It may sound like some far-fetched futuristic society, yet stories of the Amazons have been told since pre-Homeric times. Though it was long assumed that the Amazons were purely fictitious figures, historian and classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor illustrates that they were based (in part) on historical fact, influenced by the Greek's observations of the Scythians. Archaeological evidence indicates that Scythian women were engaged in hunting and warfare alongside men and were proficient with a bow and arrow, the choice weapons of the Amazons. In Greco-Roman mythology, these real historical elements were embellished to create compelling narratives. Amazons are the daughters of Ares-the God of War-who devote their time to hunting and war-training. They put up a formidable and unflinching fight against many renowned Greek heroes, including Herakles, Theseus and Achilles. The Amazons represented an extreme inversion of the patriarchal status quo, as Strabo (1 century BC) describes them as an all-female society capable of governing their own people, conquering distant lands and founding cities-all without the aid of men.
Honours Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2019
What are the Amazons, and how should we understand their identity and mode of being throughout th... more What are the Amazons, and how should we understand their identity and mode of being throughout the Greek mythic corpus? The aim of this thesis is to build upon the work of previous scholars, as there is still much that can be said about the Amazons. Although most prior scholarship analyses the depiction of Amazons by 5th and 4th century
BCE authors – Herodotus, Ephorus and Lysias – as well as iconography on 5th century Athenian public buildings, the Amazon mythic corpus is far greater in scope.
I posit that scholars who focus exclusively on Amazon portrayals from this period run the risk of overly historicising the mythic figures by adopting an Othering framework and conflating the Amazons with the Persians. In contrast, I undertake a close reading of Quintus’ portrayal of the Amazons in PostHomerica, against the background of a wider range of relevant sources from the 6th century BCE to the Second Sophistic. In doing so, I argue that the Amazons are not always portrayed as subversive figures, nor do they solely occupy a mode of being which is
explicitly antithetical to Greek societal norms. Rather, this thesis foregrounds numerous ancient accounts which portray the Amazons as heroic semi-divine figures, thus prompting a reinterpretation of the Amazons.
Conference Presentations by Connie Skibinski
Australasian Society for Classical Studies, 2025
From Archaic Greece to the present day, the legendary Trojan War has captivated public imaginatio... more From Archaic Greece to the present day, the legendary Trojan War has captivated public imagination and had a significant impact on literature, art and self-definition. A key figure in ancient sources and subsequent retellings is the Amazon Queen, Penthesilea, who led her army of women against the Greeks and ultimately perished heroically at Achilles’ hands. Throughout Medieval art and literature – characterised in large part by the self-conscious adaption of pre-existing literature – the Trojan War was a popular subject matter. Penthesilea played a large role in Medieval retellings, praised for both her courage in battle and her womanly virtues. In drawing upon ancient sources, Medieval authors adapted elements of the ancient Trojan War narrative to suit the changing tastes and preferences of scribes, audiences and patrons, diverging from the earlier accounts to create a distinctly Medieval image of Penthesilea.
An aspect of Medieval sources that is not found in extant ancient sources is the love story between Penthesilea and Hector. In the Middle Ages, Hector was consistently portrayed as the knightly ideal. As one of the Nine Worthies, he embodied the virtues of chivalry and loyalty. Penthesilea, among the Nine Worthy Women, was positioned as the ideal romantic counterpart for Hector. Penthesilea admires Hector from afar and longs to become his wife but is tragically killed before they meet. I explore how this romantic subplot draws upon popular tropes in the Medieval courtly love genre, presenting Penthesilea as a dutiful, chaste woman in line with contemporary socio-cultural models of female virginity.
Fanfiction and the Ancient World Conference, 2024
The Supernatural TV series, spanning 2005 – 2020, has attracted a loyal and dedicated fanbase aff... more The Supernatural TV series, spanning 2005 – 2020, has attracted a loyal and dedicated fanbase affectionately termed the SPN Family. Fandom scholars consider the SPN Family “a fandom like no other” (Zubernis, 2021), characterized by close communal bonds, convention attendance, and direct engagement in the production of fan art and fanfiction. As the Supernatural series draws heavily upon mythology and folklore from various cultures, fan engagement with episodes inspired by Classical Antiquity can be examined as meaningful instances of Classical Reception. By considering fanfiction as a specific form of cultural artefact derived from fannish engagement, scholars can employ a reception theory approach to examine these works as rewritings of Classical material, which shed light on how individuals receive and use pre-existing literature and ideas (Willis, 2018). This presentation examines fanfiction responding to the Supernatural episode ‘Slice Girls’ (2012), considering how fan narratives generate new meaning by challenging the established plot of the episode, particularly in relation to the depiction of Amazons.
The plot of ‘Slice Girls’ revolves around Dean’s unwitting role in propagating the Amazon tribe – he is seduced by the Amazon Lydia, who gives birth to Emma, Dean’s biological daughter. As a young Amazon, Emma is told she must kill her father to complete her initiation into adulthood, putting Dean’s life in direct danger. When Emma is defeated, Dean expresses no sympathy for his deceased daughter, referring to her as a “crazy man-killing monster”. This response elicited criticism from the fans of the show, who expected that the heavy emphasis on family throughout the series would prompt Dean to be more sympathetic, especially as Emma acts under coercion and lacks agency. Fans’ interest in Emma’s character can be seen in the 88 works in Archive of Our Own (AO3) under the pairing Emma & Dean Winchester. This paper examines key trends that emerge across these fan narratives, highlighting the tendency to portray Emma as a sympathetic victim of circumstance and/or a conventional awkward adolescent daughter. In presenting Emma in this manner, these narratives subvert the show’s portrayal of Amazons as hostile antagonists, instead reclaiming the positive portrayals of aspirational Amazon characters (such as Wonder Woman) in contemporary media.
International Women's Day - Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies, 2024
International Women’s Day is both a celebration of the achievements of women and a reminder of th... more International Women’s Day is both a celebration of the achievements of women and a reminder of the importance of shedding light on gender equality and the rights of people of marginalized genders. These principles lie at the center of my research – I foreground the heroic achievements and reverential receptions of the Amazon warrior women and critically examine representations of Queen Penthesilea, some of which deploy problematic tropes that present her as a gendered “Other”. In the spirit of Internal Women’s Day, I reflect on my experiences as a feminist historian and the joy I find in studying ancient women, undertaking research trips, and in being part of likeminded academic communities.
ANZAMEMS Conference, 2024
Medieval and Early Modern scholarship provides valuable insights into human behaviour and socio-c... more Medieval and Early Modern scholarship provides valuable insights into human behaviour and socio-cultural norms throughout time, allowing us to understand and interrogate our expectations of the past as well as the present. Societal constructs surrounding gender matter greatly since they shape the lived experiences of individuals, dictating aspects of their lives such as what they can do and how they should look. Medieval conceptions of femininity and masculinity coalesce in the figure of the warrior woman, epitomised in representations of the legendary Amazons. This presentation examines the complex representation of the Amazon Queen Penthesilea in Medieval sources (illuminated manuscripts of Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris and Lydgate’s Troy Book) and contemporary media (Troy: Fall of a City, 2018 and A Total War Saga: Troy, 2020) to highlight changing societal attitudes towards militaristic women and to showcase the important role historians can play in challenging long-established gender stereotypes.
In doing so, this presentation considers the role of the Medieval scholar to explore the dialogic relationship between past and present, exploring how traditional stereotypes can be renegotiated in the present day and how contemporary paradigms can illuminate aspects of Medieval society. Throughout, I argue that the future of the discipline lies in embracing interdisciplinarity and reception studies to showcase the enduring relevance of Medieval subject matter in the world today.
Historical, Cultural and Critical Inquiry cluster seminar series, 2023
As the recipient of the Odyssey Travel Scholarship, this year I went on a trip to Greece to under... more As the recipient of the Odyssey Travel Scholarship, this year I went on a trip to Greece to undertake research for my PhD. My thesis is titled 'The Amazon Queen Penthesilea from Antiquity to Modernity', and this travel allowed me to view artefacts of Penthesilea and other Amazons in situ. I had three primary goals associated with this research trip. First, I viewed artefacts of the Amazons (including Penthesilea) in museums, making note of the dominant iconographic modes of representation and considering how the visual material reinforces the ancient literary sources on Penthesilea that I examine in my thesis. Second, I visited sites of public buildings adorned with Amazon sculptures – the Parthenon in Athens and the Athenian Treasury in Delphi. Viewing these sites in situ allowed me to have a heightened understanding of how the ancient audience would have engaged with the visual representations of Amazons, as I observed the scale of the sculptures and the processionary nature of the battle scenes. Third, I accessed secondary scholarship in the BSA and AAIA to complete my literature review in the thesis introduction and to inspire the big-picture focus of my conclusion. This presentation evaluates how successful I was in meeting this aims, and provides an overview of the pertinent archaeological sites and artefacts that I visited.
Conference - Challenging the Patriarchy: Reframing Graeco-Roman Women and Their Reception, 2023
The mythic Amazons – an autonomous all-female tribe of fierce warrior women– embody the
antithesi... more The mythic Amazons – an autonomous all-female tribe of fierce warrior women– embody the
antithesis of Greek patriarchal norms. Their subversion of traditional gender stereotypes is at the
heart of ancient accounts, such as Herodotus’ Histories, where they claim ‘we shoot with a bow and
hurl a javelin and ride horses, we did not learn the works of women’ (Hdt. 4.114.3). While most
scholars employ a gendered or ethnocentric lens to examine the Amazons’ divergence from Greek
socio-cultural norms, this paper takes a different approach, focusing instead on their sexual identity
and sexual behaviour. Adopting a queer theory to examine the importance of virginity in Amazonian
society, I argue that their construction as unconquerable virgins challenges the heterosexual and
gendered dynamics upheld in the patriarchal institution of marriage. Since sexuality and sexual
behaviour is an inherently multifaceted topic, for the sake of scope this presentation focuses solely
on ancient Greek attitudes towards virginal and non-virginal adolescent women, particularly with
regards to discourses justifying patriarchal practices.
This paper constists of two sections, which shed light on the Amazons’ virginity customs as a
means of challenging the restrictive cultural expectations and societal norms of ancient Greece. Part
one surveys a range of written sources on the role of virginity within Amazonian society,
complemented by sources illustrating how virginal women were received within ancient Greek
society. In doing so, I argue that the Amazons’ portrayal as wild and unrestrained forces aligns with
the model of the unruly maiden upheld in ancient literature and religious rites. Part two provides an
extended case study of the virginal Amazon Queen Penthesilea and her interaction with the Greek
hero Achilles, examining the consequences she faced for transgressing heteronormative paradigms.
This presentation therefore considers both the Amazons’ attempts at circumventing the patriarchal
institution of marriage, as well as the Greek male hero’s ultimate success in ‘taming’ the seemingly
unconquerable Amazon women.
Conference: Classics and the Supernatural in Contemporary Media, 2022
Stories of the mythic Amazons – an all-female tribe of formidable warrior women– have been told f... more Stories of the mythic Amazons – an all-female tribe of formidable warrior women– have been told for millenia, from pre-Homeric times to the modern day. Prior scholarship tends to treat the ancient Amazons as hostile ‘Other’ figures, embodying the antithesis of Greco-Roman cultural norms. Recently, scholars have begun to examine the positive portrayal of Amazons in contemporary media, as role models and heroic figures. However, there is a dearth of scholarship examining the Amazons’ inherently multifaceted nature, and their subsequent polarised reception in both ancient and modern texts.
In this presentation, I apply a two-fold approach to generate a more holistic analysis of the Amazons’ complex portrayal in ancient sources and contemporary media. First, I draw upon a range of evidence from Greco-Roman art and literature, arguing that Amazons were viewed as either monstrous or heroic figures throughout antiquity, depending on authorial intention, constraints of genre, and wider socio-political concerns.
I then provide two extended case studies of contemporary Amazon narratives, highlighting that the Amazon figure is similarly polarised in contemporary media. I begin with a case study of the superhero Wonder Woman (from DC’s All Star Comics #8 in 1941 to the 2020 film Wonder Woman 1984), as this epitomises the dominant contemporary trend of portraying Amazons as strong female role models and feminist icons. As a second case study, I examine the representation of the Amazons in the Supernatural episode ‘Slice Girls’ (S7 E13, 2012), as the portrayal of the Amazons as hostile, monstrous figures serves as a counternarrative to the dominant contemporary trend. When comparing the positive characterisation of Wonder Woman with the monstrous Amazons of ‘Slice Girls’, I consider how factors such as feminist ideology, narrative story arcs, character’s/viewer’s perspectives and male bias shape the representation of Amazons post-antiquity.
The University of Sydney, Classical Archaeology Seminar Series, 2022
The mythic Amazons – an autonomous, all-female society of fierce warrior women – have been studie... more The mythic Amazons – an autonomous, all-female society of fierce warrior women – have been studied extensively by Classics scholars with an interest in ancient mythology. Much prior scholarship employs a framework of alterity, focusing on ways in which this mythical society embodies specific elements that are antithetical to Greek society. Thus, the scholarly consensus is that the ancient audience would have conceived of the Amazons as inimical figures, worthy of derision and contempt. My research challenges this line of argumentation, as I analyse a range visual material which shows that the ancient Amazons are more multifaceted than traditionally assumed.
In this presentation, I examine material culture from Greece and Rome, to consider how the Amazons were represented and perceived throughout antiquity. I employ four discrete case studies: Classical Greek ‘Amazonomachy’ artworks (5th C BC); Hellenistic era ‘Wounded Amazon’ sculptures (3rd C BC); Augustan era ‘Amazonomachy’ artworks (27 BC – 14 AD); and post-Augustan numismatic representations (1st – 3rd C AD). By analysing dominant iconographic trends as well as wider socio-political conditions, I argue that the Amazon image is highly nuanced, taking on different meaning in each period.
Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS) 43rd Annual Conference, 2022
This paper explores how the mythic Amazons – a formidable tribe of warrior women known from pre-H... more This paper explores how the mythic Amazons – a formidable tribe of warrior women known from pre-Homeric times – were represented in Roman art. While there is substantial research on Classical Athenian representations of Amazons, there is minimal scholarship considering how the Amazon image was recontextualised in the Roman era. Prior scholarship on this topic predominantly treats the Amazons through the framework of alterity, focusing solely on the Amazonomachy (battles with Amazons) motif, thus treating the Amazons as hostile, ‘Other’ figures.
By contrast, this paper provides two diverse case-studies which showcase radically different attitudes towards the Amazons. I first examine Augustan era Amazonomachies, considering how they draw upon the pre-established (Classical Greek) visual rhetoric to reflect contemporary anxieties and concerns associated with the expansion of the Roman empire. I then analyse a range of coins from the Flavian, Nerva-Antonine and Severan dynasties, which use pre-existing numismatic iconography to portray Amazons in a reverential mode, by depicting them as founders of cities and places of worship.
By juxtaposing these two artistic trends, I argue that the Amazon image is highly variable, as it is inherently shaped by wider socio-cultural paragidms, such as attitudes towards women and non-Romans. From this, I conclude that the representation of the Amazons is more complex and multifaceted than traditionally assumed, since there is ample evidence that Amazons were not portrayed as inimical figures throughout all of antiquity.
AIMS Conference “What Has Antiquity Ever Done for Us?” The Vitality of Ancient Reception Studies Now, 2021
Ancient Reception Studies provides a useful framework for teaching material to students who may n... more Ancient Reception Studies provides a useful framework for teaching material to students who may not be familiar with ancient mythic material, but are aware of contemporary adaptations. As well as using students’ prior knowledge as a starting point, a Reception Studies approach is useful as it demonstrates how ideological factors shape storytelling in both the ancient world and reception traditions. This approach proved to be especially useful when analysing and interpreting ancient Amazon mythology, as many students were not familiar with the Amazon warriors of Greco-Roman mythology. By integrating a case study of Wonder Woman – a modern iteration of ancient Amazon mythology – I was able to shed light on the ancient mythic material, while also demonstrating the influence of the feminist movement on contemporary representations of the ancient warrior women. In doing so, I had students examine scenes from Wonder Woman (2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), as well as comic book covers. This was then used to draw comparisons between archaeological artefacts depicting ancient Amazons, to see how the contemporary adaptations can draw attention to elements of the ancient mythic material that may otherwise be overlooked.
This presentation discusses both the benefits and pitfalls of teaching Amazon mythology through the figure of Wonder Woman, with a focus on how the students responded to this material during the tutorial discussions. This contributes to a wider discourse surrounding the usefulness of Ancient Reception Studies, as well as the importance of interrogating both modern and ancient perspectives in the reception of mythology.
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Videos by Connie Skibinski
Papers by Connie Skibinski
Imagine a society run by women for women, where men are only used for breeding purposes. Women who can rule themselves, found distant lands, and beat men in battle. It may sound like some far-fetched futuristic society, yet stories of the Amazons have been told since pre-Homeric times. Though it was long assumed that the Amazons were purely fictitious figures, historian and classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor illustrates that they were based (in part) on historical fact, influenced by the Greek's observations of the Scythians. Archaeological evidence indicates that Scythian women were engaged in hunting and warfare alongside men and were proficient with a bow and arrow, the choice weapons of the Amazons. In Greco-Roman mythology, these real historical elements were embellished to create compelling narratives. Amazons are the daughters of Ares-the God of War-who devote their time to hunting and war-training. They put up a formidable and unflinching fight against many renowned Greek heroes, including Herakles, Theseus and Achilles. The Amazons represented an extreme inversion of the patriarchal status quo, as Strabo (1 century BC) describes them as an all-female society capable of governing their own people, conquering distant lands and founding cities-all without the aid of men.
BCE authors – Herodotus, Ephorus and Lysias – as well as iconography on 5th century Athenian public buildings, the Amazon mythic corpus is far greater in scope.
I posit that scholars who focus exclusively on Amazon portrayals from this period run the risk of overly historicising the mythic figures by adopting an Othering framework and conflating the Amazons with the Persians. In contrast, I undertake a close reading of Quintus’ portrayal of the Amazons in PostHomerica, against the background of a wider range of relevant sources from the 6th century BCE to the Second Sophistic. In doing so, I argue that the Amazons are not always portrayed as subversive figures, nor do they solely occupy a mode of being which is
explicitly antithetical to Greek societal norms. Rather, this thesis foregrounds numerous ancient accounts which portray the Amazons as heroic semi-divine figures, thus prompting a reinterpretation of the Amazons.
Conference Presentations by Connie Skibinski
An aspect of Medieval sources that is not found in extant ancient sources is the love story between Penthesilea and Hector. In the Middle Ages, Hector was consistently portrayed as the knightly ideal. As one of the Nine Worthies, he embodied the virtues of chivalry and loyalty. Penthesilea, among the Nine Worthy Women, was positioned as the ideal romantic counterpart for Hector. Penthesilea admires Hector from afar and longs to become his wife but is tragically killed before they meet. I explore how this romantic subplot draws upon popular tropes in the Medieval courtly love genre, presenting Penthesilea as a dutiful, chaste woman in line with contemporary socio-cultural models of female virginity.
The plot of ‘Slice Girls’ revolves around Dean’s unwitting role in propagating the Amazon tribe – he is seduced by the Amazon Lydia, who gives birth to Emma, Dean’s biological daughter. As a young Amazon, Emma is told she must kill her father to complete her initiation into adulthood, putting Dean’s life in direct danger. When Emma is defeated, Dean expresses no sympathy for his deceased daughter, referring to her as a “crazy man-killing monster”. This response elicited criticism from the fans of the show, who expected that the heavy emphasis on family throughout the series would prompt Dean to be more sympathetic, especially as Emma acts under coercion and lacks agency. Fans’ interest in Emma’s character can be seen in the 88 works in Archive of Our Own (AO3) under the pairing Emma & Dean Winchester. This paper examines key trends that emerge across these fan narratives, highlighting the tendency to portray Emma as a sympathetic victim of circumstance and/or a conventional awkward adolescent daughter. In presenting Emma in this manner, these narratives subvert the show’s portrayal of Amazons as hostile antagonists, instead reclaiming the positive portrayals of aspirational Amazon characters (such as Wonder Woman) in contemporary media.
In doing so, this presentation considers the role of the Medieval scholar to explore the dialogic relationship between past and present, exploring how traditional stereotypes can be renegotiated in the present day and how contemporary paradigms can illuminate aspects of Medieval society. Throughout, I argue that the future of the discipline lies in embracing interdisciplinarity and reception studies to showcase the enduring relevance of Medieval subject matter in the world today.
antithesis of Greek patriarchal norms. Their subversion of traditional gender stereotypes is at the
heart of ancient accounts, such as Herodotus’ Histories, where they claim ‘we shoot with a bow and
hurl a javelin and ride horses, we did not learn the works of women’ (Hdt. 4.114.3). While most
scholars employ a gendered or ethnocentric lens to examine the Amazons’ divergence from Greek
socio-cultural norms, this paper takes a different approach, focusing instead on their sexual identity
and sexual behaviour. Adopting a queer theory to examine the importance of virginity in Amazonian
society, I argue that their construction as unconquerable virgins challenges the heterosexual and
gendered dynamics upheld in the patriarchal institution of marriage. Since sexuality and sexual
behaviour is an inherently multifaceted topic, for the sake of scope this presentation focuses solely
on ancient Greek attitudes towards virginal and non-virginal adolescent women, particularly with
regards to discourses justifying patriarchal practices.
This paper constists of two sections, which shed light on the Amazons’ virginity customs as a
means of challenging the restrictive cultural expectations and societal norms of ancient Greece. Part
one surveys a range of written sources on the role of virginity within Amazonian society,
complemented by sources illustrating how virginal women were received within ancient Greek
society. In doing so, I argue that the Amazons’ portrayal as wild and unrestrained forces aligns with
the model of the unruly maiden upheld in ancient literature and religious rites. Part two provides an
extended case study of the virginal Amazon Queen Penthesilea and her interaction with the Greek
hero Achilles, examining the consequences she faced for transgressing heteronormative paradigms.
This presentation therefore considers both the Amazons’ attempts at circumventing the patriarchal
institution of marriage, as well as the Greek male hero’s ultimate success in ‘taming’ the seemingly
unconquerable Amazon women.
In this presentation, I apply a two-fold approach to generate a more holistic analysis of the Amazons’ complex portrayal in ancient sources and contemporary media. First, I draw upon a range of evidence from Greco-Roman art and literature, arguing that Amazons were viewed as either monstrous or heroic figures throughout antiquity, depending on authorial intention, constraints of genre, and wider socio-political concerns.
I then provide two extended case studies of contemporary Amazon narratives, highlighting that the Amazon figure is similarly polarised in contemporary media. I begin with a case study of the superhero Wonder Woman (from DC’s All Star Comics #8 in 1941 to the 2020 film Wonder Woman 1984), as this epitomises the dominant contemporary trend of portraying Amazons as strong female role models and feminist icons. As a second case study, I examine the representation of the Amazons in the Supernatural episode ‘Slice Girls’ (S7 E13, 2012), as the portrayal of the Amazons as hostile, monstrous figures serves as a counternarrative to the dominant contemporary trend. When comparing the positive characterisation of Wonder Woman with the monstrous Amazons of ‘Slice Girls’, I consider how factors such as feminist ideology, narrative story arcs, character’s/viewer’s perspectives and male bias shape the representation of Amazons post-antiquity.
In this presentation, I examine material culture from Greece and Rome, to consider how the Amazons were represented and perceived throughout antiquity. I employ four discrete case studies: Classical Greek ‘Amazonomachy’ artworks (5th C BC); Hellenistic era ‘Wounded Amazon’ sculptures (3rd C BC); Augustan era ‘Amazonomachy’ artworks (27 BC – 14 AD); and post-Augustan numismatic representations (1st – 3rd C AD). By analysing dominant iconographic trends as well as wider socio-political conditions, I argue that the Amazon image is highly nuanced, taking on different meaning in each period.
By contrast, this paper provides two diverse case-studies which showcase radically different attitudes towards the Amazons. I first examine Augustan era Amazonomachies, considering how they draw upon the pre-established (Classical Greek) visual rhetoric to reflect contemporary anxieties and concerns associated with the expansion of the Roman empire. I then analyse a range of coins from the Flavian, Nerva-Antonine and Severan dynasties, which use pre-existing numismatic iconography to portray Amazons in a reverential mode, by depicting them as founders of cities and places of worship.
By juxtaposing these two artistic trends, I argue that the Amazon image is highly variable, as it is inherently shaped by wider socio-cultural paragidms, such as attitudes towards women and non-Romans. From this, I conclude that the representation of the Amazons is more complex and multifaceted than traditionally assumed, since there is ample evidence that Amazons were not portrayed as inimical figures throughout all of antiquity.
This presentation discusses both the benefits and pitfalls of teaching Amazon mythology through the figure of Wonder Woman, with a focus on how the students responded to this material during the tutorial discussions. This contributes to a wider discourse surrounding the usefulness of Ancient Reception Studies, as well as the importance of interrogating both modern and ancient perspectives in the reception of mythology.