WCC Schedule of Events at SCS/AIA 2026 (San Francisco, CA)
Wednesday, January 7
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COGSIP/LCC/WCC Joint Reception
When: 8:30-10:30 PM PST
Where: Imperial B
Costume theme: The Writing’s on the Wall: Street Art from Pompeii to the Mission District
Come connect with old friends, make some new acquaintances, and build some community at the SCS San Francisco opening night reception as we thank our volunteers, celebrate our award winners, and kick off the 2026 annual meeting.
Thursday, January 8
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Mentorship Coffee
When: 10:00-11:30am PST
Where: Exhibit Hall Table 5
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Staff the WCC Table
When: 2:20-5:30pm PST
Where: Exhibit Hall Table 5
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WCC Open Business
When: 1:00-2:00pm PST
Where: Golden Gate 1 and online
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LCC/WCC Student Happy Hour
Organizers: Sara Miller and Lane Flores
When: 9:00-10:00pm PST
Where: Aunt Charlie’s Lounge
All students and recent PhDs welcome!
Friday, January 9
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Staff the WCC Table
When: 1:00-5:30pm PST
Where: Exhibit Hall Table 5
Saturday, January 10
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A Monster of Our Creation: Rethinking Classical Reception in Children’s Literature
Organizer: Aisha Dad
When: Saturday, January 10, 2026, 8:00-11:00am PT
Where: Continental 4 and hybrid
Link provided via conference registration
Panel description below
A Monster of Our Creation: Rethinking Classical Reception in Children’s Literature
Organized by Aisha Dad
The controversy surrounding the casting of Leah Sava Jeffries, a young black actress, as Annabeth Chase in the Disney+ series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” only scratches the surface of the problems that plague classical reception in children’s literature. While Riordan wholeheartedly and publicly endorsed the casting of Jeffries as Annabeth Chase, it does not detract from the fact that the book series portrays Annabeth, a ‘child’ of Athena, as a girl with white skin and blond hair. What this controversy brings to the forefront is the problematic question who the rightful inheritors of classical mythology are (if anyone), and how this has been represented and negotiated, historically and in the present day, in children’s literature (Murnaghan and Roberts 2018).
The genre of children’s literature also brings forth the complexities of how mythology is made suitable for children and to what effect (Lovatt 2009). ‘Inappropriate’ mythological content is easily altered or obscured for children, but it is often done without consideration of the dangerous subtexts such alterations can create as when, for example, Persephone’s violent abduction is substituted with consent. Children’s literature has the unique quality of exposing the social and moral fault lines of society, because nothing demonstrates our adult anxieties more than the stories we tell our children (Nodelman 2008, Stephens and McCullam 2013).
This panel engages with classical reception in children’s literature and seeks to delve into questions regarding the representation of the ‘inheritors’ of classical mythology, particularly in American and European children’s literature. After all, according to Riordan, the Greek gods have settled over the Empire State building as their ‘logical’ new home. But we ask, why can’t the Greek gods settle over Burj-al-Khalifa? Reception in children’s literature, especially in America and Europe, is not simply the re-telling of ancient mythology. It is the transmission of a discipline fraught with insularity concerning race, gender, and sexuality—it is a monster of our creation.
Panelists:
Caroline Murphy-Racette, “Feminist Mythological Revisions in the High School Classroom”
Sarah Cullinan Herring, “Disability, Monsterization and Morality: the use and abuse of Classical mythology in The Princess and the Goblin“
Greta Gualdi, “Undoing Myth, Reclaiming Power: The Heroine Remade in Polissena del Porcello (1993)”
Krishni Burns, “Disabled Minotaurs and Caregiver Sisters in Popular Fiction”
Eva Dalzell, “The Responsibility of Interpretation in Middle-Grade Classical Retellings”
Micah Valliere, “Bacchus to School: Queer Alternatives to Education in 20th Century Irish Children's Fiction”
After the Conference
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Abstract deadline for WCC Panel, "Not A-Musing: Women as Art Makers in the Ancient World"
AIA/SCS 2027, Boston
Deadline: February 15, 2026
Organizers: Sarah Blake and Kate Cooper
Submit an anonymized abstract to turnera@york.ca.
Call for papers below
Not A-Musing: Women as Art Makers in the Ancient World
Organized by Sarah Blake (York University) and Kate Cooper (Royal Ontario Museum)
As feminist art historians and activists have long demonstrated, women are exponentially more likely to be the subject of traditional art than the creators of it (https://www.guerrillagirls.com/). Specific references to female artists from Greco-Roman antiquity are rare. Pliny catalogues five women painters (HN 35.147-148; Kampen 1975; Linderski 2003), including Iaia of Cyzicus who painted other women and self-portraits (Micheli 2024). The Classical Athenian ‘Caputi hydria’ may depict a woman decorating a vessel and a tiny number of Campanian frescoes survive showing women painting (e.g., PPM 5.414= MNN 9017, Naples). Women’s artistry may be recorded but obliquely: Pliny notes that the potter Butades first discovered ceramic portraiture by tracing the silhouette that his unnamed daughter had drawn of her lover on a rock-wall (Pliny HN 35.152).
Moving beyond a narrative that centres the named artist allows for a more expansive understanding of art-making in the ancient world (Squire 2015). As Murray suggests when discussing early Greece, many more women in the ancient world must have made art (Murray et al, 2020). How were women and girls part of creative artistic and artisanal working practices, conceived broadly across any medium as the expressive use of shape, gesture, color, or materials? Can we find women participating in ateliers, in material sourcing, in design? As sponsors, as owners, as assistants, as accidental creators or destroyers? Can a focus on gender make us re-think the history of art, craft, and design in the ancient world?
This panel invites papers that explore any aspect of women as art-makers in antiquity. We also welcome papers on the reception of ancient women art-makers in later times and places. We particularly welcome innovative theoretical, methodological, or arts-based approaches.
If you have questions about the panel topic or proposals, contact Sarah Blake (sblake@yorku.ca). Please send abstracts that follow the guidelines for individual abstracts (see the SCS Guidelines for Authors of Abstracts) to Alicia Turner (turnera@yorku.ca) by Feb. 15, 2026. Please ensure that the abstracts are anonymous, with self-identifying information removed. The organizers will review all submissions anonymously, and their decision will be communicated to the authors of abstracts by March 15, 2026.
Works Cited:
Guerrilla Girls. (n.d.). Guerrilla Girls. Ret. Oct. 28, 2025, from https://www.guerrillagirls.com
Kampen, N. 1975. “Hellenistic Artists: Female.” Archeologia Classica, 27(1), 9–17.
Linderski, J. 2003. “The Paintress Calypso and Other Painters in Pliny.” ZPE 145, 83–96.
Micheli, M.E. 2024. “Iaia di Cizico, perpetua virgo, pittrice dell'età di Varrone.” In Genio femminile nell'antichità, ed. S. Bruni & M. A. Funghi. Firenze: Edizioni Polistampa, 2024. 61-79
Murray, S.C., Chorghay, I., Marpherson, J. 2020. “The Dipylon Mistress: Social and Economic Complexity, the Gendering of Craft Production and Early Greek Ceramic Material Culture” AJA 124, 215-44.
Squire, M. 2015. “Roman Art and the Artist.” In Companion to Roman Art, ed. B. Borg. Wiley-Blackwell. 172-194.