Lewis Webb
About Lewis Webb
Presentation
Lewis Webb is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History.
His postdoctoral project is entitled (In)visible women: Female spatial practices and visibility in urban spaces in Republican Rome (509–27 BCE) and is funded by the Swedish Research Council from 2020–2022.
He has a PhD in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History from the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Gothenburg (2019). In his PhD thesis, he investigated elite female status competition in Mid-Republican Rome.
He has a Bachelor of Medical Science from Flinders University (Australia), a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and a Master of Philosophy (Classics) from the University of Adelaide (Australia).
His research expertise is in Roman women. He has published on gender, law, religion, and space in Republican Rome, on northern alterities in Roman literature, and on posthumanism and Roman archaeology.
(In)visible women: Female spatial practices and visibility in urban spaces in Republican Rome (509–27 BCE)
A woman’s place was at home in Republican Rome (509–27 BCE). To appear in public was ‘abnormal’ or ‘transgressive’. Such is the status quo in the traditional scholarship. This project will challenge this status quo by comprehensively examining and visualizing all the available ancient evidence for female spatial practices and visibility in urban spaces in Republican Rome. To do so it will adopt an interdisciplinary, intersectional approach, combining Roman Republican history, spatial history, and gender history with intersectional feminist theory, a spatial database, and digital mapping. Traditional scholarship links women in Rome with private spaces and practices, but recent scholarship highlights their public lives and practices. So how (in)visible were they? The project aims to challenge and resolve misconceptions about these women and to shed light on their lives. The method encompasses 1) the survey and analysis of all available ancient textual and material evidence; 2) the construction of a spatial database that collates the survey data and links women with urban spaces; 3) the construction of a digital deep map to visualize these data; and 4) the synthesis of results and overarching analysis. This novel project will expand our knowledge of women’s lives, enhance the visibility of past women, and offer an interdisciplinary model for reconsidering female spatial practices and visibility in other periods and cultures.
PhD Thesis: Elite female status competition in Mid-Republican Rome
Competition: a force that pervades societies, both ancient and modern. This force takes a central role in the discourses of modern biology, sociology, psychology, gender studies and economics; theorists in these fields trace the human struggles for life, status, capital and sexual partners, and economists defend the value of economic competition.
In my research, I focused on competition in antiquity, but limited my scope to elite female status competition in Mid-Republican Rome (264–133 BCE).
In the past, scholarship on the Roman Republic has drawn particular attention to the importance of status competition for elite males, but few scholars have examined intersections between status competition and gender. I hoped to remedy this lacuna, inspired by modern research on female competition in sociology, psychology and gender studies.
In brief, my findings indicated that 1) senatorial women competed for status by visibly displaying their wealth and other resources throughout the city, especially during public religious activity, banquets, funerary practices, and the triumphal procession, 2) that they had vast resources available for their competitions, including wealth, social networks, and status symbols, and 3) that Roman legislators tried and ultimately failed to regulate female status competition through laws and other sanctions.
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WOMEN AND POLITICS IN LATE REPUBLICAN ROME - (F.) Rohr Vio Le custodi del potere. Donne e politica alla fine della repubblica Romana. (Piccoli saggi 66.) Pp. 268. Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2019. Paper, €22. ISBN:
978-88-6973-369-7.
Lewis Webb
Classical Review - 2020-01-01 -
Gloria muliebris: Elite female status competition in Mid-Republican
Rome
Lewis Webb
- 2019-01-01 -
Qui hic mos est in publicum procurrendi? Reconsidering female presence and visibility in public and sacred spaces in Republican
Rome
Lewis Webb
Spaces of Roman Constitutionalism Conference, 26.-28.9.2019, Helsinki, Finland - 2019-01-01 -
Leges durae: Regulations affecting women’s property rights in Mid-Republican
Rome
Lewis Webb
Australasian Society of Classical Studies Annual Conference, Armidale, NSW, Australia, 4-7 February 2019. - 2019-01-01 -
Mihi es aemula: Elite Female Status Competition in Mid-Republican Rome and the Example of Tertia
Aemilia
Lewis Webb
Eris vs. Aemulatio: Valuing Competition in Classical Antiquity / Damon, Cynthia, Pieper, Christoph (eds.) - 2018-01-01 -
Gendering the Roman
imago
Lewis Webb
Classical Association Annual Conference, 6 - 9 April 2018, University of Leicester - 2018-01-01 -
Religious Leadership, Ancient Roman
Religions
Lewis Webb
Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture across History / Susan de-Gaia, Editor - 2018-01-01 -
Inter imperium sine fine: Thule and Hyperborea in Roman
Literature
Lewis Webb
Visions of North in Premodern Europe - 2018-01-01 -
Gendering the Roman imago: Clarae imagines from filia to
funus
Lewis Webb
ARACHNE VIII: Ages, Ageing and Old Age in the Greco-Roman World Conference, 25-27 October 2017, Gothenburg, Sweden - 2017-01-01 -
Gendering the imago: Clarae imagines from filia to
funus
Lewis Webb
International Society for Cultural History Annual Conference - 2017-01-01 -
PROTEAN
TARPEIA
Lewis Webb
Classical Review - 2017-01-01 -
SEMPER SUPPLICAT: FEMALE SACERDOTAL
CAPACITY
Lewis Webb
Classical Review - 2017-01-01 -
Gendering the Roman
imago
Lewis Webb
Eugesta - 2017-01-01 -
Semiviri vates: Visions of early Roman encounters with the
Galli
Lewis Webb
Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference - 2016-01-01 -
Pompa matrum: Elite women and the pompa for Magna Mater in 204
BCE
Lewis Webb
Classical Association Annual Conference - 2016-01-01 -
Matronae imperiosae: The imperiality of Aemilia Paulla and Livia
Drusilla
Lewis Webb
Gendering Roman Imperialism Workshop - 2016-01-01 -
Mihi es aemula: Female status competition in the Roman
Republic
Lewis Webb
Penn-Leiden Colloquium on Ancient Values IX (Eris vs. Aemulatio: Competition in Classical Antiquity) - 2016-01-01 -
ROMAN WOMEN CENTRE
STAGE
Lewis Webb
Classical Review - 2016-01-01 -
Volitans Victoria: Elite women and the advent of the Magna Mater (204
BCE)
Lewis Webb
Gender and Status Competition in Premodern Societies Workshop - 2015-01-01 -
Shame transfigured: Slut-shaming from Rome to
cyberspace
Lewis Webb
First Monday - 2015-01-01 -
Sexual virtue exposed: ‘Slut-shaming’ in cyberspace and on the streets of Ancient
Rome
Lewis Webb
Digital Gender: Theory, Methodology and Practice Workshop - 2014-01-01 -
Northern Desire: Thule and Hyperborea in Greco-Roman
Thought
Lewis Webb
Northern Visions Workshop - 2014-01-01 -
Challenging Androcentric Ambitio: Female Status Competition in the Roman
Republic
Lewis Webb
g14 National Gender Conference - 2014-01-01 -
‘I’m your Venus, I’m your fire’: the religious prominence of female virtue in the Second Punic
War
Lewis Webb
Subversion and Censorship from Plato to Wikileaks Conference - 2013-01-01