My name is Erika Lindgren Liljenstolpe and I have been a doctoral student at Uppsala University since January 2009. I have previously worked at the Medelhavsmuseet (The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities) in Stockholm, mostly with the digitization of artefacts in the museum collections. I have also participated in excavations in Pompei and Prima Porta, Rome.
The aim of my thesis is to explore music and gender in ancient Rome with a focus on studying attitudes towards women musicians from the upper class during the late Republic and Augustan period. These periods of Roman history are interesting both from a social and musical perspective as the Roman world underwent various changes and was influenced by new ideas during this time. Texts will be my main source of reference since woman musicians are visible in the love poetry and historical and juridical texts from both periods. I will also look at iconographic and epigraphic sources to a certain extent.
My idea is that women’s relation to music-making was complex. A woman musician could be looked upon as promiscuous since professional musicians were often prostitutes. At the same time, it was considered an advantage to have some knowledge of music and to be able to play a little for household purposes; music belonged to cultural education. In essence, as long as women did not break the limit of what was considered acceptable behaviour, that is, to play too well or in public, men’s domain was not intruded upon.
I find it fruitful to study this from a gender perspective and discuss how attitudes towards women musicians could be understood in connection with the patriarchal nature of Roman society and its implications on women. My primary question is to investigate how female musicians are portrayed and discussed in the textual sources. In order to answer this question I find it essential to discuss the context of music-making and to evaluate whether women musicians acted in official or private “rooms”. I also want to explore how these “rooms” functioned and affected the definition and construction of female identities. Theories about modern music and gender, which concern female and male within musical expression and acting, gendered instruments etc. will also be taken into account.
