Peter Meineck, artistic director of the Aquila Theatre Company, will give a talk titled "Masks, Gender, and Performance: Women's Ritual in the Oresteia" as the Classics' Department's Winslow Lecture on Monday, Nov. 13, at 4:10 p.m. in the Science Center Auditorium (G027).
Meineck is the artistic director of the Aquila Theatre Company and teaches in the Classics department at New York University. He has published translations of both Greek comedy and tragedy, including Aeschylus' Oresteia, which won the 2000 Lewis Galantiere Award for best literary work from the American Translators Association. His translations of Sophocles' Philoctetes and Ajax will be published shortly, and he is currently working on a stage adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22.
Meineck notes that Aeschylus imbues the Oresteia with the visual and textual motifs of women's cult practice in Athenian culture. In a discussion of the use of the mask, the appropriation of gender roles, and the presentation of ritual, he will propose that that Aeschylus develops the female dimension of the Oresteia in far more detail that a purely textual reading tends to allow. By acknowledging and seeking to understand the performative aspects of Greek drama, we may be able to more fully comprehend the text.
This event is free and open to the public.
