Friends of Antiquity Milns Visiting Scholar Sunday Series: styles and status – Roman women and the art of hair
Join UQ’s Friends of Antiquity for the Milns Visiting Scholar Sunday Series event, ‘Style and status – Roman women and the art of hair’.
Like fashion and dress, hairstyles can be situated as a fundamental method by which bodies are made and given meaning and identity.
Were Roman hairstyles the subject of swiftly changing innovation amongst women of the upper classes, as is often claimed by modern scholars? Was it only young women who affected fashionable hairstyles?
Join Professor Kelly Olson, University of Western Ontario, as she examines women’s hairstyles in Roman antiquity (200 BC–250 CE) using the Getty Villa’s collection, and how these marked out a woman’s rank and status. Professor Olson will also examine hair dyes, hair recipes, hair problems, wigs and hairpieces, and hair ornaments of this period.
Event Details
Time: 1:45pm for 2–4pm
Presentation: 2–3:15pm, followed by afternoon tea
Location: Room E302, Forgan Smith Building, UQ St Lucia or online
Cost: In-person: $10 per person – online: $5 per person
Meet the presenter: Professor Kelly Olson
Professor Kelly Olson holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and is currently a full Professor in the Dept. of Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario, with a cross-appointment in the Dept. of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research. Her research focuses on Roman society, sexuality, and appearance, as well as fashion history more generally. She has lectured all over North America and Europe, most recently at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Getty Villa in California, and the Norwegian Institute in Rome.
Professor Olson is the author of several articles on clothing in Roman antiquity, published in Mouseion, Fashion Theory, The American Journal of Ancient History, Classical World, and The Journal of the History of Sexuality. Her first book, Dress and the Roman Woman: Self-Presentation and Society, was published by Routledge in 2008. Masculinity and Dress in Roman Antiquity was published by Routledge in 2017. Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, of which she is co-editor along with Alicia Batten, was published in 2021 by Bloomsbury Academic. She has three more edited collections forthcoming.
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