In a time when society is thinking passionately about bodily rights and who gets to make decisions about women’s bodies, Season 2 turns to history. Women in the ancient world mattered, and so did their bodies—maybe learning about them can give us new questions as we face our own world.

In our season intro episode, meet an ancient high-priestess of Ur and the first known author in human history: Enheduanna. Climb Mount Sinai with the Christian pilgrim Egeria. These two women and the records they left behind offer a personal glimpse into embodied moments of religious experience. And they help us set the stage for the season ahead.

Episode show notes: https://www.womenwhowentbefore.com/episodes/bodily-matters

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.

The podcast theme music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.
Season 1 Episode 0 intro music is licensed from Krux Music Publishing Limited.

This podcast is sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Committtee for the Study of Late Antiquity at Princeton University.

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

On the Season 1 finale we talk with Dr. Deborah Lyons about ancient Greek myths, breaking cultural boxes, and why we should all strive to be killjoys.

Pandora's box, Penelope's gifts, Helen's beauty in Sappho's poetry, and more. Why does it matter that Pandora didn't actually have a box in the earliest versions of the myth? How were objects and the practice of gift-giving gendered in Classical Greece? What rituals did ancient Greek women participate in, and what did they produce? As we study ancient women, what strategies can we turn to for unearthing hope?

Shownotes: https://www.womenwhowentbefore.com/out-of-pandoras-box-recovering-hope/

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.

The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.

Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

In the penultimate episode of season 1, “In Her Own Words: Ancient Women Authors,” we talk with historian and classicist Dr. Kate Cooper about gatekeeping, the privilege of individualism, and those rare surviving moments when women wrote for themselves.

The famous Greek poet Sappho, who wrote of love and loss.
Faltonia Betitia Proba, the elite Roman woman who adapted Virgil to tell Christian history.
The pilgrim Egeria who described her tour of the Holy Lands to her circle of female friends back home.
And of course we revisit Perpetua, the martyr from Carthage we first met in Episode 0.

Shownotes: https://womenwhowentbefore.com/in-her-own-words/

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.

The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.

Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

In Episode 8 our hosts talk with Dr. Elizabeth Shanks Alexander about whether women can keep track of their own periods, religious law as a boys’ club, and why ancient rabbis cared about witchery.

Episode show notes: https://womenwhowentbefore.com/suffering-witches-to-live.

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.

The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.

Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

Dr. Caryn Tamber-Rosenau explains how two lethal women perform gender in the Hebrew Bible. Judith and Jael were talented Jewish heroines who skillfully played their hands (and bodies) to save their people from invading armies.

How might the stories about Clytemnestra and the Ugaritic goddess Anat have shaped these biblical narratives? How does the book of Judith intersect with Judas Maccabee and the Maccabean Revolt? How is virginity a sexual orientation?

Gender performance, queer theory, and femmes fatales join with Agatha Christie's murder mysteries and the Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi to understand how gender is play acted and subverted in ancient texts.

CW: This episode also discusses themes of sexual assault.

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh. The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.

Episode show notes: https://womenwhowentbefore.com/women-get-a-head/

Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

Dr. Solange Ashby teaches us about Nubian warrior queens, Hollywood stereotypes about Egyptian women, and why you shouldn’t trust Wikipedia.

Meet the powerful, voluptuous queens of Meroe—Amanirenas, Amanitore, Amanishakheto. While Roman noblewomen were supposed to stay hidden at home, these queens were ruling and leading their troops into battle.

Hear how Nubian families tracked filiation through their mothers. Learn about color consciousness in the biblical story of Moses' Kushite wife. And along the way, discover what Cleopatra and Wonder Woman have in common.

Show notes and sources: womenwhowentbefore.com/african-warrior-queens

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Rebekah Haigh and Emily Chesley.

The theme music was composed and produced by Moses Sun.

The podcast is sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University.

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

We interview Dr. Thomas A. J. McGinn about Roman prostitution, marriage laws, and a strange Cinderella story.

What was a paterfamilias and how did they determine a woman’s life? Were prostitutes merely doing their civic duty? Why did early Christians call the Roman government the pimp-in-chief?

Autonomy and agency are the overarching themes of this episode. We explore them in laws governing Roman women, how prostitution was legislated and profited from in Ancient Rome, why sex work isn’t the right term for the Roman world, and why even empresses weren’t immune from slander. Imperial Japan's “comfort women,” Marie Antoinette, and Iran’s headscarf laws are part of this story too. But we start with an actress named Theodora.

CW: This episode discusses themes of rape and sexual exploitation.

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Emily Chesley and Rebekah Haigh.

The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.

Episode show notes: womenwhowentbefore.com/the-oldest-profession/.

Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University.

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.

We talk to Dr. Susan Ashbrook Harvey about how gender shaped ancient thinking about God, women's church choirs, and the complex web of metaphors for the divine within Syriac Christianity.

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Rebekah Haigh and Emily Chesley.

The music is composed and produced by Moses Sun. This episode was fact-checked by Jillian Marcantonio and George Kiraz.

Show notes: womenwhowentbefore.com/two-breasts-of-the-father/

Sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, and the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.