Emily Hauser (Classics 2006) brings together ancient literature and archaeology to shed new light on the lives of women in Bronze Age Greece in her latest, bestselling book .
Emily describes her first encounter with Classics at the age of 11 as 鈥渓ove at first sight鈥, and before long she knew that this was the subject she would study at university. Her journey led her to Gonville & 91直播 College for her undergraduate degree (where she won the University of Cambridge鈥檚 Chancellor鈥檚 Medal for Classical Proficiency), followed by a year at Harvard University on a Fulbright Scholarship and an MA, MPhil and PhD in Classics at Yale University.
The role of women in antiquity is one key strand of Emily鈥檚 research, and in particular the role that female characters play in Homer鈥檚 Iliad and Odyssey, the two foundational epic poems of the ancient Greek world dating to around the eighth century BCE. Throughout her career, Emily has explored Homer鈥檚 women both academically and creatively. While working on her PhD, she wrote and published her debut novel, For the Most Beautiful, which retells the Iliad, a male-dominated martial epic, from the perspective of two trafficked and enslaved women who are crucial to the plot of Homer鈥檚 poem but are almost entirely silenced within it.
Mythica, Emily鈥檚 new, non-fiction work, examines the archaeological record of the Late Bronze Age (around 1700-1050 BCE), ranging across modern-day Greece, Turkey and even as far as Georgia, to reveal much about the real-life women who inhabited the world in which Homer鈥檚 poetry is set and who lay behind the fictional female characters of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Highlighting and connecting with the voices and experiences of women long forgotten by the historical record is vital if we are to fully understand the Bronze Age world, Emily claims.
Writing Mythica has been a thrilling experience for Emily. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think I have ever had so much joy in my work,鈥 she says. 鈥淎s a literature scholar, I was really discovering the joy of material artefacts. We might have a spindle whorl that looks like a really boring object, but from that we can extract a story of women鈥檚 experiences. My hope is that readers get that sense of the excitement of discovering archaeology as a tool to uncover the ancient past, but also that the individual discoveries in and of themselves are going to inspire new ways of understanding antiquity and women.鈥
Upon release, Mythica became an instant Times bestseller, and Emily is touched and humbled by the book鈥檚 success. She is passionate about outreach work in Classics and hopes that Mythica鈥檚 popularity will help contribute to making the subject more accessible.
鈥淐lassics for so long was the preserve of male educated elites, and in response there has been an incredible upswelling of new histories and new voices,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e have a responsibility to open this narrative to as many people as possible. You might not have been able to study Greek history or read the Greek epics at school; I鈥檓 very aware that I was so lucky to be able to do that, and I want to share that knowledge and excitement with as many people as possible.鈥
Photo credit: Faye Thomas Photography
