IWD 2025: 'Mythica – Finding the real women behind Greek myth: A conversation'

Who were the real women behind the myths that made the Greeks? What are the new archaeological discoveries and latest scientific advances that are allowing us to peer into the world of the real women, on whose pattern the stories of Helen of Troy, Circe, Calypso, Briseis and Penelope were built? How might tools like fiction provide us with a new way to re-imagine their tales – and how important is scholarship in the conversation around foregrounding women’s voices? How does understanding their side of the epic tales of Homer that, for millennia, were the foundation of the West, change the way we read the past, and write stories for the future?

In this talk, Emily Hauser reflects on her work as a novelist, scholar and author, in the light of her upcoming book, Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, through the Women Written Out Of It, which will be published with Penguin Random House in April. She will reveal what it took to find the real women who were written out of the histories and myths of the past – from all kinds of different angles. There will then be a panel discussion in conversation with HCA’s Theshira Pather (graduate student in Classics) and Katerina Stergiopoulou (Lecturer in Modern Greek Studies).

Followed by a reception. Please register (free) at the Eventbrite link.