About Us

Our collaboration began with four friends committed to exploring how best to support research and teaching topics related to sex and gender in the ancient Mediterranean with the twin aims of (1) open-access and broad accessibility of resources and (2) critical conversations around meaningful pedagogy in this field.

We are committed to intersectional feminist, anti-racist, pro-LGBTQIA+, and decolonizing content and methods.  We support genuine collaboration, welcome additional contributors (educators, scholars, students, creatives), and are committed to disrupting the individualistic and competitive culture of academia.  Our aim is to support the development of radical, transformative pedagogy that will enable the creation of aligned curriculum and praxis.  

Sarah Blake

Sarah Blake is an Associate Professor of Roman Literature and Culture at York University in Toronto. Her research interests include Classical Latin literature, topography and material culture of the Roman world, theoretical approaches to literature and culture, with emphasis on gender, sexuality, and slavery, and  Roman wall painting and visual culture.

Devon Harlow

Devon Harlow is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics and Gender Studies at Connecticut College. She also teaches as a Latin Instructor at the Williams School. Her expertise and interests include ancient Greek ritual, especially the Eleusinian Mysteries, ancient Comedy, and witchcraft.

Chiara Sulprizio

Chiara Sulprizio is a Principal Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University. She has also taught at Loyola Marymount University, Hamilton College and the University of Southern California, where she received her Ph.D. in 2007. Her scholarly work examines ancient attitudes and ideas about gender and sexuality, especially as they are depicted in comedy, satire and other humor-based literary genres. These interests are explored extensively in her book, Gender and Sexuality in Juvenal’s Rome: Satire 2 and Satire 6 (Oklahoma University Press, 2020), which offers a fresh translation of two of Juvenal’s most provocative poems, accompanied by notes and an introduction (by Sarah H. Blake) geared toward undergraduates and those just beginning their study of this challenging ancient author. She is also interested in the reception of the Classical past in modern comics, graphic novels and animation, and she is the creator of the web archive “Animated Antiquity: Cartoon Representations of Ancient Greece and Rome” (www.animatedantiquity.com). Her volume, Animation and the Ancient World, co-edited with Toph Marshall, will be published by Oxford University Press this year.

Jody Valentine

Jody Valentine is an Assistant Professor of ancient Greek literature and culture at Pomona College, with expertise in material culture, gender and sexuality, and pedagogy.  Her 2020 open-access Pressbook Gender & Sexuality in Ancient Greece has over 25,000 views. She has past and forthcoming articles on the poet Sappho, and on critical approaches to the Classical past. Jody is a certified Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (2023), and is team lead of the Deltos Project.