Scholars in Residence 2023: Impoverished Aesthetics
Five undergrads. Four weeks. Three braincells (we have to share). Two geese (they’re married, and we’re very happy for them). One goal.
What happens when you get five nerds and a supervisor who has too much faith in them in a room together? You get academic anarchy, and it’s all Ovid’s fault.
Our esteemed supervisors, Dr. Lorenza Bennardo and Dr. Rebecca Moorman, set out with the noble endeavor to investigate subaltern aesthetics in Latin literature and contemporary media, with the goal of producing public facing scholarship. Referring to marginal states of being (i.e. womanhood, deprivation, victimhood), the project seeks to relate ancient depictions of aesthetic impoverishment with similar instances in modern media using an accessible medium.
That’s where we come in.
As members of the “kids these days” with an interest in Classics, we are in a unique position to combine our fresh perspective with the old, dusty material that has been studied for the last 2000 years. Respecting our roots as broke college students, our goal is to bring this project into the public eye (for free!). We’re sick of articles that are too expensive and obscure to be read by the general population, and now we’re taking matters into our own hands. You’re welcome.
This blog is a compendium of hot takes focusing on comparisons between Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Heroides and modern media: from Love Island and 70s slashers to modern novels and Studio Ghibli, and even Game of Thrones. Brace yourselves.
In all honesty, we never intended to start with Ovid. We just ended up there. Aside from our minimal attention spans, the short stories were easier to digest, analyze, and make accessible to a wide audience. We initially connected with the centrality of female characters in his work, which drew us further into a rabbit hole of literary devices, metaphors, and creative verse. If we put aside the amount of children that get eaten, Ovid’s stories sparked emotional responses that reminded us of our favourite modern media.
Ovid was a literary powerhouse of his time, so it makes sense that we see elements of mass-consumed modern media in his work, and vice versa. While most media that reflects his works aren’t directly inspired by poems like the Metamorphoses, the themes, imagery, and emotions are still directly relevant. Reflecting on the changes in media over time, our project diverges into two branches, exploring either the degradation or the subversion of these themes through modern adaptations.
