Postgraduate Course: Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Roman Society (online) (PGHC11641)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course offers the study of women in Roman society from an Empire-wide perspective, drawing on evidence from across the ancient Mediterranean. Teaching will focus on the first few centuries of the first millennium AD, i.e. the period from which the bulk of the evidence hails - literary, legal, epigraphic, papyrological, archaeological. The teaching will offer a solid introduction to the study of Roman womanhood - from empresses to slaves. Apart from its specific Roman historical dimension, the course aims to be an introduction to the topic of women in history more broadly, notably in conceptual terms, seeking especially to situate women and their contribution to society in key historical narratives in Roman history. |
| Course description |
This course offers the in-depth exploration of womanhood in Roman society, focused on the first few centuries of the first millennium AD. The course introduces students to diverse expressions of womanhood in Roman society, and across the vast reach of the Roman Empire - from Roman Britain to ancient Judaea. The course aims to provide a holistic view of the diverse lives of women in Roman society, highlighting in particular the similarities and differences between the lives of women of different social and legal statuses. Simultaneously, the course seeks to challenge students to critically reflect on the role of female actors in history and, by extension, on the role of women in the historical narratives produced by modern scholars. Given the topic, the course will cover multiple aspects of a sensitive nature, notably domestic violence, forced and child marriage, as well as sexual abuse.
Taught through thematically arranged classes, the course will challenge students to conceptualise the diversity of womanhood in Roman society, and the varied evidence characteristic of groups of women of different statuses. It is a declared aim of this course that students be further challenged to approach the study of womanhood in Roman society in a much wider historical context, stretching up to modernity, and consciously including confrontation with the lived realities of womanhood in contemporary societies. Covering the full range of evidence, from philosophical writings to dirt archaeology, the course will enhance students' familiarity with diverse bodies of evidence typical for the study of Roman antiquity. This will in turn allow a diverse skill range to be honed among class participants.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Online Activities 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
1,000 word exhibition leaflet (25%)
3,500 word essay (75%) |
| Feedback |
Students are given the opportunity to present an outline of their exhibition leaflet in class, receiving immediate oral, and subsequent written feedback thereon. For the coursework essay, students are given the opportunity to discuss their essay topic and ideas with the course organiser prior to submission. In addition to pre-advertised drop-in sessions, individual, scheduled meetings will be offered by the course organiser to suit the students' time schedules. Students will also receive feedback on their submitted coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss this feedback further with the course organiser |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- demonstrate, especially by way of coursework, an ability to critically engage with key aspects of the ancient history of womanhood, with particular regard to its Roman setting and its modern relevance.
- demonstrate, especially by way of coursework, an ability to critically engage with diverse types of sources, including notably both textual and material evidence, that document varied aspects of womanhood in the Roman period.
- demonstrate, especially in class discussion, independence of mind and initiative, intellectual integrity and maturity, as well as an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers.
- demonstrate, by way of coursework, bibliographical research skills and an ability to independently find additional information on topics relevant to the course as well as analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship.
- demonstrate, by way of coursework, an ability to summarise succinctly, critically engage with and to comment with authority on, the key points in relevant scholarship.
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Reading List
Examples of key research contributions on Roman woman/womanhood:
Evans Grubbs, J., '"Marriage more shameful than adultery": slave-mistress relationships, "mixed marriages", and late Roman law', Phoenix 47.2 (1993), 125-54
Gardner, J. F., Women in Roman Law and Society (1986)
Hemelrijk, E., Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna (1999)
Joshel, S. R. and S. Murnaghan (eds.), Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture. Differential Equations (1998)
Keith, A., Engendering Rome: Women in Latin Epic (2000)
Parker, H.N., 'Free women and male slaves, or Mandingo meets the Roman Empire', in A. Serghidou (ed.), Fear of Slaves - Fear of Enslavement in the Ancient Mediterranean (Discourse, representations, practices) (2007), 281-98
Pomeroy, S. B., Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (1975)
Pomeroy, S. B. (ed.), Women's History and Ancient History (1991)
Sandon, T., The Lives of Roman Freedwomen in the Latin West. An Epigraphic Study (2025)
Treggiari, S., 'Jobs for women', American Journal of Ancient History 1 (1976), 76-104
Examples of readily available source collections/student readers on womanhood (Roman antiquity):
Dixon, S., Reading Roman Women: Sources, Genres, and Real Life (2001)
Hemelrijk, E. Women and Society in the Roman World: A Sourcebook of Inscriptions from the Roman West (2020) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research, collect, evaluate, and use the available evidence to contextualise the multiple and diverse dimensions of womanhood in Roman society in the first half of the first millennium AD.
Summarise, interpret and critique previous and current literature on Roman womanhood, in particular regard to the respective evidence and broader historiographic debates.
Analyse and explain the contexts and settings that produced what are now the material relics of the lives of women in the Roman Empire, and how these interacted with their social, cultural, and physical environments.
Identify original research questions concerning key topics in the study of ancient, especially Roman womanhood, with particular regard to the available evidence, historiographic debates and contemporary issues.
Communicate clearly, both in verbal and written form, ideas, work in progress, and results developed after researching specific aspects of the history of womanhood in Roman society, including in respect of its diverse source base.
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| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ulrike Roth
Tel: (0131 6)50 3586
Email: U.Roth@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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