Whether naked or clothed, male or female, mortal or divine, the body takes pride of place in the visual worlds constructed by ancient Greek artists. Yet this proliferation of representations of the body begs the question: What is a body that exists as an image? What, in other words, is a body that is not embodied? Taking this problem as our starting point, we will investigate how works of art served in ancient Greece to both reflect and define the experience of embodiment. We will examine the various ways in which Greek artists represented the body, and consider how forms of identity, especially gender difference, were imagined and articulated through artistic practices. But we will also interrogate the ways in which works of art themselves — statues, paintings, vessels — could function like bodies or in place of bodies, expanding the notion of what it meant to be a living person. In addition to scholarship on Greek art, readings will include ancient literature in translation, theoretical writing on embodiment and gender, and a selection of comparative writings from other subfields of art history.
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