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“Ancient Myths and Lesbian Legends” with Mara Gold
Medusa, Medea, Artemis… we’ve all heard their stories before but what do they sound like when not told by (or centred on) men? Mara Gold, the sapphic scholar, is here to tell us all about these figures and about how there is always more than one side to a story and more than one reading to a myth. Come for the lesbian legends, stay for the witty witches and follow us @queerlitpodcast and @sapphic_scholar.
References
Mara Gold’s Ancient Myths and Legends Without Men (2025)
Mara Gold’s “Rebels Against the Tyranny of Men’: Women Performing Greek Comedy in Early Twentieth-Century Britain” in Women Creating Classics (2025)
https://mara-gold.com/
@sapphic_scholar
Beyond the Binary Pitt Rivers Museum
https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/beyond-the-binary
Ashmolean Museum
Rebellious Bodies audio tour
https://app.smartify.org/en-GB/tours/ashmolean-rebellious-bodies-tour?utm_campaign=ashmoleansmartifywebpage&utm_medium=webpagelink&utm_source=ashmoleanwebsite&utm_content=rebelliousbodiestour
Smartify
Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975)
Femme fatale
Gorgons
Apotropaic figure
Athena
Hera
Natalie Haynes’ Stone Blind
Madeleine Miller’s Circe
Rosie Hewlett
Pat Barker
Madeleine Miller’s Circe
Sirens
Odyssey
Durham Castle
Hans Christian Andersen
Selkie
Demeter
Penelope
Medea
Maenad
Dionysus
Bacchus
True Blood
Amazon
Atalanta
Nataly Barney
Lesbos-en-Seine
Artemis
Double Slice
https://doubleslice.studio/
Actaeon
Callisto
Zeus
Aphrodite
Jason
Argonauts
Glauce
Suranne Jones
Doctor Foster
Gentleman Jack
Children of Srikandi (2012)
Hector and Hephaestus
Radical Book Fair
Lighthouse Books Edinburgh
The Bookish Type
Caper bookshop
The Magicians
Persephone
Cassandra
Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
- What is sapphism?
- What is classical reception? How is this relevant to Mara’s work?
- What are the archetypes that Mara uses to structure the book? Which one are you most interested in and why?
- What does Mara say about Srikandi and Srikandi’s role in LGBTQIA+ activism in Indonesia?
- How can we draw on ancient myths for queer activism today? What does Mara say about this? What are your thoughts?
- Do you have a favourite figure from mythology or legends?
