A delightful episode with Mara Gold (St Hilda’s College, Oxford), aka the Sapphic Scholar, who talks to me about Sappho (duh…), homosociality, queer college life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, lesbian love letters and surprise pubic hair in the queer archives. Mara is a historian, knows her way around Ancient Greece and Egypt, she works on and in museums, and get this: she has even worked as an archaeologist in the field. Best of all, Mara brings a refreshing and entertaining Sapphic perspective to everything she does – including this here podcast. Please note that the sound quality isn’t great but it gets better throughout the episode. Apologies!

People, texts and places mentioned:
Sappho
V&A Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum
HD
Elizabeth Bishop
Katherine Mansfield
Michael Fields
Mary Barnard
Anne Carson (fragment 168b translation)
Eve Sedgewick Kossofsky
Henry Thornton Warton
Sharon Marcus. Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2007.
If These Walls Could Talk 2

Need more Sappho on your socials? Follow Mara and me on Instagram and Twitter (@sapphic_scholar/@Lena_Mattheis).

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is homosociality?
2. Why does Mara study women‘s educational environment? How are colleges Sapphic?
3. Why does Sappho become so important at this particular point in time (end of 19th, beginning of 20th century)?
4. Which functions does Sappho serve in the queer community?
5. Could you comment on the reception history of Sappho’s work? What made this complicated?