Show Notes
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?
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