Written Arts Program Presents
Ancient Lives: A Talk with James Romm, Francine Prose & Peter Stothard
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Online Event
7:00 pm EST/GMT-5
7:00 pm EST/GMT-5
An Oblong Online Event
Ancient Lives is a new series, from Yale University Press, of biographies of “thinkers, writers, kings, queens, conquerors, and politicians—both the well-known and the lesser known—from all parts of the ancient world.” James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College and editor of the series, will talk with fellow authors Francine Prose & Peter Stothard about the first three books in the series - Cleopatra: Her History, Her Myth, Crassus: The First Tycoon and Demetrius: Sacker of Cities. This is an online event is hosted by Oblong Books. It is free and open to the public, though an RSVP is required—you may RSVP here. James Romm's Demetrius: Sacker of Cities is a portrait of one of the ancient world’s first political celebrities, who veered from failure to success and back again. The life of Demetrius (337–283 BCE) serves as a through-line to the forty years following the death of Alexander the Great (323–282 BCE), a time of unparalleled turbulence and instability in the ancient world. With no monarch able to take Alexander’s place, his empire fragmented into five pieces.
Peter Stothard's Crassus: The First Tycoon is the story of Rome’s richest man, who died a humiliating desert death in search of military glory. After Crassus was killed, historians told many stories of his demise. Some said that his open mouth, shriveled by desert air, had been filled with molten gold as a testament to his lifetime of greed. His story poses both immediate and lasting questions about the intertwining of money, ambition, and power.
Francine Prose brings a feminist reinterpretation of the myths surrounding Cleopatra and casts new light on the Egyptian queen and her legacy. Prose delves into ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, as well as modern representations of Cleopatra in art, theater, and film, to challenge past narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offer a new interpretation of Cleopatra’s history through the lens of our current era.
You may read more about the event on the Oblong Books website.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, e-mail [email protected],
or visit https://www.oblongbooks.com/event/online-james-romm-peter-stothard-francine-prosehttps://.
Time: 7:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Location: Online Event