We invite offers of papers to form a conference panel at the 8th Celtic Conference in Classics, to be held at the University of Edinburgh from 25-28 June, 2014.

The panel seeks to explore women, their images and realia in the classical cultures including those of Greece, Rome, Etruria, Persia, and contemporary indigenous societies such as the Iberian. It will pivot on visual culture and archaeology, including all forms of artistic representation, with special attention to the problems and methodologies involved.

The aim of the panel is twofold: to study the images of women and the archaeological evidence regarding them from varied points of view and methodologies (art-history, iconography, post structuralism… ), and to address the question of how images can contribute to our understanding (or misunderstanding) of the lived realities of women in the ancient world.

Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to:

– Scenes or images of women in their sociopolitical context

– Images abroad. Women in the export market

– Images, symbols, metaphors

– How (not) to paint a woman

– Women and death

– Grave goods and gender identity

– Women’s pots: only for women?

– Colonial contacts and women

– Cosmetics

– Clothing and hairstyle

– The beautiful woman

– Divine models

We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes on any of the above (or related) topics. Please, send abstracts of a maximum of 300 words to [email protected] and/or [email protected]

Submission Deadline:1st November, 2013.

Please, note that the Celtic Conference is self-funding and all speakers must arrange and bear the cost of their own accommodation, subsistence and conference fee.

The languages of the Celtic Conference in Classics are English and French.