Mary Hamil Gilber Receives Center for Hellenic Studies Fellowship

Dr. Mary Hamil Gilbert, assistant professor of Classics, has been awarded a fellowship from the Center for Hellenic Studies; this fellowship will enable her to spend the Fall 2024 semester at the Center in Washington, DC, where she will work on her new project, “She is My City”: Hecuba and the Politics of Care in Greek Tragedy.

Dr. Gilbert’s  projects span Greek and Roman tragedy and ancient women authors (like Sappho, Anyte of Tegea and Vibia Perpetua). They build on the work of other socially-conscious interpreters to shift our ideas about who and what matters in the study of the ancient world. Her way into these texts is connected to major contemporary concerns – gender, class, race, the environment, and the way these cultural concepts get shaped by structures of power. Her new project is the first book-length study to employ feminist care ethics as a framework to analyze the relationship between caregiving and systems of justice in Greek literature. It examines the tragic character of Hecuba, whose experiences of motherhood, queenship, and enslavement shaped her approach to justice.

The Center for Hellenic Studies is one of the premier research centers dedicated to Greek culture and society. Since its establishment in 1960, the Center has fostered innovative research on all aspects of Hellenic culture, broadly construed, through its fellowship programs, publication series, and conferences; fellows have access to one of the premier research libraries for Classical studies not just in the United States, but the world. Congratulations, Dr. Gilbert!