Diotíma

Diotima is the evolution of a project that began in 1995, dealing with materials related to teaching Ancient Medditeran Studies from a feminist persepctive. Diotíma: Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World (v. 1.0) was originally launched by Ross Scaife and Suzanne Bonefas in 1995, before lapsing and being taken over by the Women’s Classical Caucus in 2017. Since then, several updates to the site have been made, resulting in the platform that now hosts a variety of materials, including bibliographies, open access images, as well as syllabi.

Some other notable things that the website includes are translations, teacher resources (which are comprised of videos, poetry, films, resources for getting started, etc.), as well as essays and reviews by scholars related to this subject. The most interesting resource on their site is the image collection section of the website. This resource is made up of links and references to areas where teachers and students alike can find open-access images, either to demonstrate points being made in lessons, or generally for better visualization of the historical topics being discussed.

This resource is mainly geared towards teachers, but that does not mean that it can’t be used to the students’ benefit. The essays posted may serve as good tools for contextualizing the history of the ancient Mediterranean for students, and image collection may be a good way for students to see how the things they are discussing actually looked and were performed in everyday life. This website is especially well-fleshed out, especially considering that it deals with “women, gender, sex, sexualities, race, ethnicity, class, status, masculinity, enslavement, disability, and the intersections among them” in a manner that has not been traditionally of academic focus.