Dr Sarah Derbew (Harvard University)

"The Metatheater of Blackness: Danaids, Dunbar, and Ellison"

Dr Sarah Derbew is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows; starting in the Fall of 2020, she will be an Assistant Professor of Classics in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. Her research focuses on critical and self-reflexive theorizations of race and skin color in ancient Greek literature and art from the fifth century BCE to the fourth century CE.

In this lecture, she will provide an interdisciplinary reading of Aeschylus' Suppliant Women in conversation with Paul Laurence Dunbar and Ralph Ellison, touching upon the use of Critical Race Theory in dealing with ancient Greek literature and its reception. 

The Lecture is generously funded by the HRC and IATL as part of the Classical Connections Seminar Series and as Public Lecture for the undergraduate module 'Africa and the Making of Classical Literature'