British Studies Colloquium: Catherine M. Roach, University of Alabama

On Yale’s Greek Slave: A Fannish and Feminist Social Practice Art Project on the Most Famous and Forgotten US-UK Sculpture

Abstract

The Greek Slave is widely described as the most viewed sculpture of the 19th century. This controversial icon of art history—America’s first female nude, inspired by Greece’s struggle for independence, referencing American slavery—was central to the visual culture of the UK and the US. It galvanized debates about abolition and women’s changing role in society. The Yale University Art Gallery holds an original full-size version, from 1850. The University of Alabama, where Catherine Roach is an interdisciplinary humanities professor, holds two other versions of the Greek Slave. This talk explores her project of fan passion for this transatlantic artwork, viewed as an open site of ongoing storytelling. She draws on fandom as methodology, critical love studies, Goddess imagery, and art practices of letterpress and 3D printing to explore the statue’s relevance at the intersection of racial, gender, and sexual justice today. Working with her students and as part of a Southern collaborative, she asks: What happens when we return attention to this Venus figure and try to create reparative space for power narratives to emerge of resistance, resilience, talkback, and community?