About the Book
This interdisciplinary edited volume explores the notion of queenship as it has manifest from antiquity to the present, in contexts ranging from political acts to art production. Featuring the work of scholars, educators, curators and artists, this book gathers temporally and geographically distinct ideas about queenship into a single discursive space. Invigorating the conversation around powerful historical women and their legacies, the contributors discuss 'queenship' as a concept with contemporary urgency-from North America to Africa, and Europe to Asia-foregrounding critical methodologies and creative interventions that address the gaps within archives and current cultural and socio-political representation.
Although traditional narratives present queens of the ancient Mediterranean world primarily as the wives, daughters and mothers of kings, such as Semiramis and Cleopatra, the ways in which royal women wielded power-whether directly or indirectly-were actually multivariate, highly nuanced and culturally specific. The current contributions featured in this volume are concerned with teasing out the modern assumptions that have heavily influenced interpretations of gender norms and power dynamics in antiquity. In addition to re-examining primary sources, this volume scrutinizes the historiographies, methodologies and stereotypes that have shaped knowledge production and popular imagination over the course of hundreds and even thousands of years. As such, contributors present different kinds of receptions and speculative articulations of historical queenship, thus forging new paths forward for reconstructing and imagining queenships from antiquity to the present.
Table of Contents:
Dedication
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Unearthing Historical Queens and Imagining Queenship, in the Past and Present, Patricia Eunji Kim (New York University, USA) and Anastasia Tchaplychine (Independent Scholar, USA)
Part I: Approaching the Histories and Historiographies of Ancient Queenships
2. Arabian 'Queen's' or 'Female Kings'? Defining šarratu during the Neo-Assyrian Period, Ellie Bennett (University of Helsinki, Finland)
3. What Difference Did a Title Make? Queenship Before and After, Elizabeth Carney (Clemson University, USA)
4. Hatshepsut: Frames of Power and the Speos Artemidos, Jacquelyn Williamson (George Mason University, USA)
5. What Do We Know About the Queen of Sheba? Epistemological Limitations and New Paths Forward, Jillian Stinchcomb (Brandeis University, USA)
6. Kleopatra III: Not the Evil Queen by Tara Sewell-Lasater (Montana State University, USA)
7. Centering Nubian Queens in the Ancient World: Histories, Historiographies, and (Mis)interpretations, Tasha Vorderstrasse (University of Chicago, USA)
8. Queens and Consorts in the Modern Story of Sardanapalus, Michael Seymour (Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA)
9. Wisdom, Virginity, and Motherhood: Archetypes of Ethiopian Queenship, David Spielman (New York University, USA)
Part II: Speculating Ancient Queenship in Modern and Contemporary Visual Culture
10. Assyrian Mothers and Queens in Diaspora: A Conversation with Maryam Yousif, Anastasia Tchaplyghine (Independent Scholar, USA)
11. Impossible Dream of a Woman King : Cleopatra and Wu Zeitan in the Korean Drama Series Great Queen Seondeok, Jackie Murray (SUNY University Buffalo, USA)
12. Vanguard of the Viragoes: On the Forefront Looking Back, ChelseaDee Harrison (Independent theater-maker, USA)
13. Becoming I Am Queen Mary: A Conversation Between the Artists La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers, La Vaughn Belle (Independent Artist, USA) and Jeannette Ehlers (Independent Artist, Denmark)
14. Queens in the Classroom: Connecting Histories of Royal Women, Patricia Eunji Kim (New York University, USA)
15. What is a Queen to You?, Lydia Pamudji (New York University, USA)
16. KANDAKA, Yasmin Elnour (Independent Artist, Sudan)
17. Barbie®, Perpetual Queen of the Egyptians: Inventing Egyptian Queenship in Popular Culture, Aimee Hinds Scott (University of Roehampton, UK)
18. ANTI-ICON Apokalypsis Mythos, Martine Gutierrez (Independent Artist, USA)
19. The Contour of a Queen, Makeup Museum (Independent Museum, USA)
20. Looking Critically: Goddesses, Queens, and Their Reflections, Hallie M. Franks (New York University, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Patricia Eunji Kim is Assistant Professor at New York University, USA, and Senior Editor and Curator-at-Large at Monument Lab. She is author of The Art of Hellenistic Queenship: Bodies of Power (forthcoming) and co-editor of The National Monument Audit (2021) and Timescales: Thinking Across Ecological Temporalities (2020).
Anastasia Tchaplyghine is Guest Curator at the Cincinnati Art Museum, USA, and Registrar for the University of Pennsylvania's Iraq Heritage Stabilization Program at Nimrud and Nineveh, USA. She is co-editor of A Wonder to Behold: Craftsmanship and the Creation of Babylon's Ishtar Gate (2019).
Review :
[This] collection of essays provides important insights into how we should be thinking about queens and queenship in both conceptual and historical terms. It will be a significant contribution for any further studies on queens, queenship, and the power and accoutrements of female royalty.
This book does not try to provide just another academic overview of approaches to queenship in a cross-cultural, comparative perspective, but rather it tries to strike at the core of what royal female power means in the ancient Mediterranean through to the present day. The immensely positive contribution that this volume makes is to put the burgeoning field of ancient queenship studies in dialogue with contemporary artistic and cultural understandings of queenship from a variety of fascinating angles.
