Dr. Kassandra J. Miller, Assistant Professor of Classics, Colby College
A Classical Studies Department Colloquium. In-person attendance at 402 Cohen Hall. Cookies and coffee served beforehand at the Cohen 2nd Floor Lounge.
Abstract
This talk investigates the array of techniques used in the Roman Imperial period to induce menstruation—techniques such as cupping, bloodletting, inserting pessaries, ingesting or applying materia medica, or wearing amulets—and seeks to understand the range of social contexts in which they might have been used. We will focus particularly on how menstrual induction technologies could be deployed in agonistic settings, such as competitions between healthcare providers within the medical marketplace or conflicts between different healthcare consumers who sought to control women’s reproductive health. This latter category would have included not only menstruators themselves, but also menstruators’ family members, enslavers, employers, and physicians. By examining the positive evidence for menstrual induction in the Roman period and using the methodological tools of critical speculation and close reading against the grain to explore the interpretive possibilities that evidence presents, this paper will demonstrate how menstrual induction technologies could be deployed both to grant and to deprive menstruators of agency over their own bodies and to fortify or to undermine hierarchies of gender, class, and civic status.