February 25 @ 5 pm
Co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies and the Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Introduced and organized by Will Brockliss, Associate Professor of CANES as part of the Center for European Studies Spring 2021 Virtual Lecture Series.
How did Romans make their famous togas? Not from bedsheets! In this talk, Dr. Hagen will use reproductions of ancient tools to demonstrate how Greeks and Romans processed wool from a raw fleece to a finished textile, including spinning thread with a drop spindle and weaving on a warp-weighted loom. Along the way, we will see how textile production featured in ancient mythology and philosophy and will explore the role of women’s labor in society.
Adrienne Hagen is an assistant professor and co-chair of Classics at Monmouth College, where she teaches courses on ‘Nature and the Environment,’ ‘Labor, Class and Slavery,’ and ‘Ancient Magic and Witchcraft,’ among many others. Her current book project, Nature and the Environment in Greek and Roman Thought: A Sourcebook,isunder contract with Routledge Press. She lives on a farm in rural Illinois where she helps tend a variety of fruit and nut trees and hopefully will have her own flock of sheep and goats one day soon. She earned her PhD in Classics from UW-Madison in 2016.