Women, Gender and Motherhood through the Ages

Friday November 6th 2026

RSSS Building, Lectorial Room 1.21 ● School of History, Australian National University

Registration is essential: please RSVP by 12 midday, Monday November 2.

9.15-9.30 Welcome

Meaghan McEvoy and Laura Rademaker (ANU)

Session 1 – Chair: Karen Fox

9.30-10.00 Simona Martorana (ANU): Parta ultio est: Metaphor, Embodiment, and Motherhood in Seneca’s Medea

10.00-10.30 Esther Klein (ANU): Exemplary Mothers in Ancient China: Move House, Scold the King, Save the Country

10.30-11.00 – Morning tea break

Session 2 – Chair: Alexandra Kujanpaa

11.00 – 12.00 – Keynote 1: Sarah Gador-Whyte (ACU): The Ascetic Matrona: Ideal Womanhood in Christian Late Antiquity

12.00-12.30 – Meaghan McEvoy (ANU): Maternal Manipulation: Imperial mothers and their children in Late Antiquity

12.30-1.30 – Lunch

Session 3 – Chair: Caillan Davenport

1.30-2.30 – Keynote 2: Matthew Firth (Flinders): Cultural Memory and Patterns of Queenship in the Life of Gunnhildr ‘the Mother of Kings’

2.30-3.00 – David Romney Smith (ANU): Saints and Mothers: Travel and the Family in the Mediterranean

3.00-3.20 – Afternoon Tea

Session 4 – Chair: Karen Downing

3.20-3.50 – Tania Colwell (ANU): Motherhood and its Paradoxes in Late Medieval France

3.50-4.20 – Julie Hotchin (ANU): “Is Mother Superior?”: Reflections on Female Abbatial Authority in late medieval Germany’

Conclusion

This event is supported by the ANU School of History and the ANU Centre for Classical Studies

For any questions, please contact Dr Meaghan McEvoy - meaghan.mcevoy@anu.edu.au

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation plan, please contact the event organiser (meaghan.mcevoy@anu.edu.au)