Disability and the Ideal in Archaic Greek Art

Ancient Studies Week Lecture with Debby Sneed, California State University Long Beach
Part of the Fall 2025 Humanities Forum

Disability and the Ideal in Archaic Greek Art

The study of Greek art is heavily influenced by the notion of the ideal and idealized human body, which has long been assumed to exclude various aspects of bodily difference and disability. In this talk, Debby Sneed will present a marble sculpture of a korē (maiden) that was dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis in the late 6th century BCE. This sculpture represents a dwarf woman, likely the daughter of a married couple whose names are preserved on the inscribed base. Altogether, this sculpture and its base represent the best-attested dedication from the Acropolis in the Archaic period, and yet it remains largely unknown to students of ancient Greek art because of the difficulties art historians have had placing her, with her body, into preconceived ideas about ideal Greek representations. With an approach informed by theories developed in the field of disability studies, we can reassess this sculpture and, with it, our understandings of ancient Greek art, display, and dedication in 6th century BCE Athens.

Debby Sneed is Assistant Professor of Classics at California State University, Long Beach and Field Supervisor of the Athenian Agora excavations and summer program. She researches physical disability in the ancient Greek world and advocates for accessibility in the modern fields of Classics and Archaeology.

Admission is free.

Co-sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities and the Critical Disability Studies Minor.

Photo: Sean DuFrene / Photographer, Strategic Communications, California State University, Long Beach