What's Slavery Got to Do with It? Plautus' Rudens, Roman Slavery, and 1884 St. Louis

Professor Stewart’s lecture will revisit the remarkable 1884 performance of Plautus’ ancient Roman comedy Rudens by a group of nine female students at Washington University. This event was commemorated in a virtual symposium and performance in 2021, hosted by the Department of Classics, is discussed in a 2022 article in Classical Receptions Journal by Julia Beine, and is further examined in an upcoming special of Classical Journal, guest-edited by Tim Moore and Zoe Stamatopoulou. Professor Stewart’s lecture examines the sociopolitical and ideological context of the performance, and the stories of the women who made it happen.