Queens in Antiquity and the Present

Speculative Visions and Critical Histories

Patricia Eunji Kim, Anastasia Tchaplyghine

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350380905
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: History of Ancient Art
• Index: History

This interdisciplinary edited volume explores the notion of queenship as it has manifest from antiquity to the present, in contexts ranging from political acts to art production. Featuring the work of scholars, educators, curators and artists, this book gathers temporally and geographically distinct ideas about queenship into a single discursive space. Invigorating the conversation around powerful historical women and their legacies, the contributors discuss 'queenship' as a concept with contemporary urgency-from North America to Africa, and Europe to Asia-foregrounding critical methodologies and creative interventions that address the gaps within archives and current cultural and socio-political representation.

Although traditional narratives present queens of the ancient Mediterranean world primarily as the wives, daughters and mothers of kings, such as Semiramis and Cleopatra, the ways in which royal women wielded power-whether directly or indirectly-were actually multivariate, highly nuanced and culturally specific. The current contributions featured in this volume are concerned with teasing out the modern assumptions that have heavily influenced interpretations of gender norms and power dynamics in antiquity. In addition to re-examining primary sources, this volume scrutinizes the historiographies, methodologies and stereotypes that have shaped knowledge production and popular imagination over the course of hundreds and even thousands of years. As such, contributors present different kinds of receptions and speculative articulations of historical queenship, thus forging new paths forward for reconstructing and imagining queenships from antiquity to the present.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: Unearthing Historical Queens and Imagining Queenship in the Past and Present
• Part One Approaching the Methodologies and Historiographies of Ancient Queenships
• 2 Arabian “Queens” or “Woman Kings”? Defining Šarratu during the Neo-Assyrian Period
• 3 What Difference Did a Title Make? “Queenship” Before and After
• 4 Hatshepsut: Frames of Power and the Speos Artemidos
• 5 What Do We Know about the Queen of Sheba? Epistemological Limits and New Paths Forward
• 6 Kleopatra III: Not the Evil Queen
• 7 Centering Nubian Queens in the Ancient World: Histories, Historiographies, and (Mis)Interpretations
• 8 Queens and Consorts in the Story of Sardanapalus
• 9 Wisdom, Virginity, and Motherhood: Archetypes in Ethiopian Queenship
• Part Two Speculating Ancient Queenship in Contemporary Cultures
• 10 Assyrian Mothers and Queens in Diaspora: A Conversation with Maryam Yousif
• 11 The Impossible Dream of a Female King: Queer Gender and the Reception of Cleopatra and Wu Zetian in the 2009 Korean Historical TV Drama Seondeok Yeowang (선덕여왕; 善德女王; “The Great Queen Seondeok”)
• 12 Vanguard of the Viragoes: On the Forefront Looking Back
• 13 Becoming I Am Queen Mary: A Conversation between the Artists La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers
• 14 Queens in the Classroom: Connecting Histories of Royal Women
• 15 What Is a Queen to You?
• 16 Kandaka
• 17 Barbie®, Perpetual Queen of the Egyptians
• 18 ANTI-ICON Apokalypsis Mythos
• 19 The Contour of a Queen
• 20 Looking Critically: Goddesses, Queens, and Their Reflections
• Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Copyright