Allison Glazebrook
Rank: Associate Professor
Department: Classics
Ext: 3319
E-mail: aglazebrook@brocku.ca
Work currently in progress, or about to be begun, along with indication
of when the project is likely to culminate and what form it will take:
My current work focuses on prostitution in ancient Greece. To date, much of my research has been on the image of the ancient prostitute in judicial oratory. I have concentrated on how male speakers construct and manipulate the image of the prostitute for their own ends. In part, my work is a reaction to scholarship that idealizes the ancient hetaira (sexual companion, regularly translated as courtesan), and attempts to look at how prostitution affected the lives of women across ancient Athenian society.
At present, I am researching representations of women more generally in a variety of genres in an attempt to provide a larger context for the image of prostitutes in judicial oratory and to show how boundaries between various categories of women are regularly manipulated. The overall purpose of my research is to show that narratives involving women in judicial oratory, often considered a more reliable source for ancient women, need to be read with caution because they represent manipulations of images of women towards a specific end. In addition, they are part of a tradition of male discourse extending back to the earliest Greek literature. The project takes the form of a book.
In a related project, I have received a SSHRC Standard Research Grant to study prostitution in classical Athens and am currently working on the socio-cultural history of the Athenian brothel. The project was part of a panel session at the Annual meeting of the AIA (Archaeological Institute of America) in San Diego in 2007 and will be one chapter in a book on ancient Greek prostitution I am editing with Prof. Madeleine Henry of Iowa State University.
Work previously undertaken, research achievements or projects completed:
“Prostituting Female Kin: Plu. Sol. 23.1-2." Dike: Rivista di Storia del Diritto Greco ed Ellenistico 8 (2006): 33-53. http://www.ledonline.it/Dike/allegati/Dike8_Glazebrook.pdf
“The Bad Girls of Athens: The Image and Function of Hetairai in Judicial Oratory.” Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World, eds. Christopher A. Faraone and Laura K. McClure. University of Wisconsin Press, 2006: 125-38.
“The Making of a Prostitute: Apollodoros’s Portrait of Neaira.” Arethusa 38.2 (2005): 161-88.
“Reading Women: Book Rolls on Attic Vases.” Mouseion Series III, 5 (2005): 1-46.
Research Grants Held (including dates) and Research Awards or Honours:
2006: HRI Research Grant Brock University. 2006: Visiting Senior Associate Member, American School of Classical Studies at Athens. 2005-2008: SSHRC Standard Research Grant. 2005: HRI Research Grant Brock University. 2004: HRI Research Grant. Brock University. 2004: SSHRC SEED Grant. Brock University. 2001-2003: Post-doctoral Fellow in Humanities. Stanford University
Areas of Research Interest (in brief):
Social and cultural history of Greece, Greek oratory, visual rhetoric, ancient sexuality and gender.
