BA Art History and History

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Roman Women in 22 Objects

Course unit fact file
Unit code CAHE20532
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This course explores the material culture of Roman women. This includes any kind of object, artefact or archaeological evidence related to women, used by women or even produced by them. Twenty-two key objects, one for each lecture and dating from the early Principate to Late Antiquity, will be used as tools to introduce wider topics (e.g. the archaeology of birth and childcare; marriage and relationships in material culture), archaeological corpora (e.g. portraits, terracotta votive offerings, textiles), and specific archaeological contexts (e.g. female burials, female public and domestic spaces) in order to investigate women’s lives and roles in Roman society. Through close analysis of evidence in lectures and seminars, students will learn different approaches and methodologies to critically engage with Roman material culture. 

Aims

  • to be introduced to the study of women in antiquity
  • to learn how to analyse material evidence in order to explore ancient women lives
  • to locate material evidence into the wider historical background
  • to learn how to use archaeological objects for research

Knowledge and understanding

  • to understand how archaeological objects are related with the study of Roman women
  • to understand how objects were produced, used and exchanged or commodified in the Roman world
  • to be able to classify ancient objects according to their aims, contents and material aspect

Intellectual skills

  • To construct an argument in written and oral form
  • To assimilate and summarise large quantities of evidence, and to engage critically and analytically with this evidence
  • To conduct independent research
  • To present the results in a professional manner with appropriate and detailed reference to sources and modern published scholarship

Practical skills

  • to manage time
  • to engage with collections of material evidence
  • to engage in critical discussion and debate

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • to be able to communicate ideas in appropriate written and oral form
  • to work in groups
  • to analyse data and be able to interpret them

Employability skills

Other
The course involves a large number of important employment skills, most notably an ability to analyse and examine complex information, an ability to synthesise an argument in a cogent form, the ability to collaborate with experts in different fields, the retrieve information from complex sources and present it in a compelling and cogent fashion.

Assessment methods

Assessment task Formative or Summative

Weighting within unit  (if summative)

Poster Formative & summative 50%
Essay Summative 50%

 

Resit Assessment

Assessment task
Essay

Feedback methods

Feedback method Formative or Summative
Written feedback

Students will receive summative and formative feedback on their coursework assessments. Students are encouraged to submit a draft of the review to the course convenor for written formative feedback in advance of the final submission.

Oral feedback

The seminars are a place for directed discussion and thus provide verbal formative feedback on the development and presentation of argument and interpretation on a weekly basis. In advance of submitting written coursework, students are encouraged to discuss their plans with the course convenor who will provide formative feedback.

 

Recommended reading

  • · E. D’Ambra, Roman Women, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007
     
  • · E. Fantham, H. Foley, et al., Women in the Classical World: Image and Text, Oxford: 1994
     
  • · S. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity, London: Penguin Random House 1995 2nd ed
     
  • · J. Rowlandson (ed.), Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998
     
  • · P. Zanker, Roman Art, Los Angeles: Getty Publications 200

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 167

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Duncan Keenan-Jones Unit coordinator

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