2018 McKibben Lecture Features an Iconic Heroine of Ancient Literature

Jeffrey Henderson, an internationally recognized expert on ancient Greek drama, will give a free, public lecture on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, one of ancient literature’s most enduring heroines, at 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, April 19, in Joe Rosenfield '25 Center, Room 101. His talk is the 13th annual McKibben Lecture in Classical Studies, sponsored by the Department of Classics.

Henderson’s talk is entitled “Lysistrata Through the Ages: Receptions of An Iconic Heroine.” In 411 BCE Aristophanes introduced the world’s first everyday (non-mythical) heroine in his comedy Lysistrata, where a sex-strike and protest movement end a long war and improve men's behavior toward women. Over the subsequent 2,429 years, most recently in Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, Lysistrata has continued to inform and engage a range of social, political, and sexual movements in her unique and iconic way.

Jeffrey Henderson

Henderson is William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University, where he has taught since 1991 and served as Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 2002-2007. He is also the general editor of the Loeb Classical Library. Previously, he served as president of the American Philological Association (now the Society for Classical Studies) and held professorships at Yale University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Southern California. He earned his bachelor's degree from Kenyon College and his master's degree and doctorate from Harvard University.

He is the author of The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy and Aristophanes Lysistrata: Edited with Introduction and Commentary. He is contributing editor of a number of other scholarly volumes and author of dozens of articles, most prominently on ancient drama, politics, gender and sexuality, obscenity, and the ancient novel. He has also translated numerous works of Greek literature into English, including all of the plays and fragments of Aristophanes, Longus, and Xenophon. His pioneering scholarship has earned him numerous fellowships and awards, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and in 2011 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The McKibben Lecture in Classical Studies

The McKibben Lecture in Classical Studies is sponsored by the Department of Classics and honors Bill and Betty McKibben, whose combined service to Grinnell College and to the greater Grinnell community totaled more than a century.