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.
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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.