3-Week SASA Reading Group: Liminal Spaces in the Ancient Roman World

The reading group explores the concept of liminal spaces in Ancient Rome. Each week will start with examining a key piece of text from ancient Rome, which discusses an act of gendered or behavioural transgression within a specific place that may be understood as ‘liminal’ in nature. The class will consider the scholarship surrounding the idea of a ‘liminal space’, and what impact this may have on the behaviours and social identities of individuals within it. In particular, we will discuss the relationship between caves, gardens, and beaches, and literary descriptions of religious or cultic gender transgression, considering how we might see social behaviours affected by these spaces in Ancient Rome. The class will explore three types of physical place in turn, considering texts from religious sources, plays, and a variety of ancient texts, before what the relationship might be between that space and the actions that take place within…