Female Characters play various roles in the Odyssey patron goddess (Athena), seductress (Kirke, the Sirens, Nausikaa), carnivorous monster (Skylla), maid servant (Eurykleia), and faithful wife (Penelope). Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this study examines these different female representations and their significance within the context of the poem and Greek culture. A central theme of the book is the visualization of the Odyssey's female characters by ancient artists, and several essays discuss the visual and iconographic implications of Odysseus' female encounters...

A vision of reality in which a pre-eminent human type was defined in opposition to non-ideal 'Others' characterized ancient Greece. In democratic Athens the social structure privileged male citizens, and women, resident aliens, and slaves were marginalized. The Persian Wars polarized the opposition of Greeks and Barbarians. This anthology provides the first investigation of the delineation of otherness across a broad spectrum of the imagery of Greek art. An international cast of authors, with methodologies ranging from traditional to avant-garde, examines manifestations of the Other in Late...

A new wave of feminist utopian and dystopian stories are upon us. Beth Cohen's imaginary world stakes out all the necessary grounds for why women are driven to recreate the world they might live in, and who the women need to become in order for such worlds to exist. Her cast of bold and memorable characters include the warrior, the healer, the negotiator, the lovers, and more -- those who create new ways of living and working to make a new society as it splits from the old. There can be no going back once women have found their destiny, and their "destinies are change."