Beyond the Boundaries of Fantasia: An ancient imagining of the future of leadership

Plutarch's Antony: Gender and Leadership

As the current presidential election cycle has made crystal clear, the ways in which we evaluate the actions, achievements, and character of a leader is often dependent -- consciously or not -- on a leader's gender. In this module, we will examine how beliefs, expectations, and stereotypes about gender affect perceptions of leadership. Plutarch's Life of Antony allows us to examine some of those gender dynamics in the context of ancient political biography. We will consider the construction of both femininity and masculinity, in Antony, Fulvia, Octavia, and Cleopatra, and how gender presentation negatively and positively affects the leadership abilities and achievements of the subjects of the Life.
 
Our ultimate goal is to to formulate cogent, well-substantiated answers to the following two questions:
 
 

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