Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Classical women writers task force

Project overviewTasksCurationGuidesAwardsOur classicistsTalk page

Goals Improve Wikipedia's coverage of Greek & Roman women writers. Create guidelines for assessment and improvement of existing articles about Greek & Roman women writers. Scope The project covers all Classical female authors writing in Greek and/or Latin, as well as women writers from Late Antiquity/sub-Roman Europe/Early Byzantium writing in these languages. Writers need not have been native Greek or Latin speakers, but they must have written in one and lived when Ancient and Koine Greek and Latin were still living languages with native speakers. Being cognizant of problems in what Theodore Markopoulos called the "misty transition" and to ensure that coverage is as wide as possible, candidates for inclusion may date from Classical Antiquity through the waning of Late Antiquity, with definitions stretched as far as possible. The Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia can be regarded as the terminal mileposts for Latin writers, and Omurtag's Tarnovo Inscription and the Chatalar Inscription for Koine Greek; any Latin authors after Romulus Augustulus and any Greek authors after the accession of Heraclius but before these markers will be subject to extra scrutiny before inclusion in the work of this task force instead of one on mediaeval women writers in the daughter languages, or women who were composing in a dead language. Task force members are encouraged to make suggestions on revision of these guidelines on the talk page if they find them problematic. Members Jpbrenna (talk · contribs) Open tasks Recruit more members to help with project completion. Improve logo. Please list suggestions for improvement below. If you are an artist and would like to design a new logo, please outline proposals below. Vote or find some other acceptable way of reaching consensus on these tasks, amending existing ones, and adding new ones. Consider sub-dividing members into Greek, Roman, Assessment, and other Workgroups based on interest and competencies. Members may specialize or contribute to multiple workgroups if they are able. Ensure that all articles on female Greek and Roman female writers are properly categorised as such to enable tracking of articles. Use expansive criteria to catch authors considered "Byzantine" "Christian," etc. but who wrote when Ancient Greek and Latin were still natively spoken. Also, note that there has been recent controversy over categories listing women writers as ____ women authors. Ancient Greek women writers and Roman women writers are existing categories that are being used by this task force to ensure coverage of neglected women writers and to aid in navigation to articles of interest for those who would like to learn more about Greek and Roman women writers. If users have a better solution for tracking, please make suggestions here. We are being as inclusive as possible and including late authors from periods when Ancient Greek and Latin were moribund languages, but not quite dead. We should connsider fork(s) or sister project(s) for women writers in Greek and Latin who wrote in other periods when Ancient Greek and Latin were dead languages, and/or for women classicists and translators of the mediaeval/early modern period, e.g. Margaret Roper. Create article guidelines and assessment criteria. Create classification critera for category placement. Greek-speaking women who lived during the time of the Roman Empire should be called Greek if they wrote in Greek, but they may also be categorised under Ancient Roman women writers as well as Ancient Greek women writers. Many Hellenistic Greek women writers will have been ethnic Greeks, but also Roman peregrinae and in some cases, Roman citizens as well as citizens of their native city states. Others will have been ethnic Copts, Syrians, Gauls, Jews etc. writing in Greek. While this information, if known, should be included in the text of the article, please use the Template:Infobox_writer to summarise these points so that readers will have a picture of the political and cultural milieu in which the author lived and wrote. Please use qualifiers if the information is only presumed or is disputed. Rate each existing article on Greek and Roman female writers by level of completeness and relative importance to prioritise articles for improvement according to assessment criteria. Classifications below are the opinions of one Wikipedian and are not final. Improve stub-class articles to good and feature-length articles, wherever possible, keeping in mind that sometimes the paucity of biographical details will sometimes make it impossible to expand some articles beyond stub class. Collaborate with Wikipedians who have access to Wikipedia:Loeb and other primary and secondary source material to improve articles and check references. Create infoboxes or employ existing ones to summarize key information about women writers if this has not already been done by another project. Usually this will be the writer infobox, as above. Coordinate with members of other WikiProjects like WomenWriters, WomenArtists and Chemistry, Philosophy, Medicine, History and Military History etc. for help in expanding articles (many of these women writers had other professions or experiences that influenced their work, and they may be notable in contexts other than their writing). Examine sources of articles to ensure that the putative woman writer actually wrote. Most women writers listed below have at least fragments of their writing preserved or are quoted in other authors; however, some like Aspasia are imputed to have helped someone else write, but have no attributed works. A formal definition of "writer" would help make decisions on inclusion. As is the case with many (if not most) ancient authors, the writers covered will often have no extant work, but we should endeavour to find out what they did in fact write, even if their work is lost, and we should consider re-classifying those for whom there is no evidence of authorship of any work. Establish, through authoritative secondary sources, a canon of attested Greek and Roman female authors. For now, a modified list drawn from Ian Plant's Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome will be followed. Spurious or suspect authorship is noted next to the author's name. When dealing with spurious authors, we should cite scholarly sources on why the attributed work(s) are considered spurious using NPOV. Until a better system is established, articles will be rated as Non-existent, Stub, Fair, amd Good. Priorty is to be given by this project to create at least stubs where no article currently exists. Greek Authors Aesara Fair. Agallis Fair. Aelia Eudocia Good. Anyte of Tegea Stub. Arignote Good. Aristodama Aspasia* Good. Dubious. Supposedly helped Pericles write speeches, no other attested works, none quoted. Boeo Stub. Cleobulina. Stub. Cleopatra the Alchemist Good. Cleopatra the Physician Non-existent. Corinna Good. Demo (epigrammist) Non-existent. Dionysia (epigrammist) Non-existent. Diotima of Mantinea Good. Elephantis Fair. Erinna Stub. Eucheria Non-existent. Hedyle Stub. Hestiaea Good. Hypatia Good. Maia (obstetrix) Non-existent. No extant works, but quoted by Galen. Mary the Jewess Good. No extant works; quoted by the Hermeticists. Melinno Stub. Melissa (philosopher) Stub. Moero Stub. Myia Stub. (Spurious). Myrtis of Anthedon Stub. Nicobule Stub. Nossis Stub. Olympias of Thebes Non-existent. No extant works, mentioned as author by Pliny the Elder Pamphile of Epidaurus Good. Perictione Stub. (Suspect) Philaenis Stub. Phintys Stub. (Spurious) Praxilla Stub. Ptolemais of Cyrene Fair. Salpe Fair. Samithra Non-existent. Sappho. Good. Sotira (obstetrix) Non-existent. No extant works, mentioned as author by Pliny the Elder Telesilla. Fair. Theosebeia Non-existent. Timaris Non-existent. No extant works, mentioned as author by Pliny the Elder Xanite Non-existent. Latin Authors Caecilia Trebulla Non-existent Cornelia Africana Good. Egeria Good. Faltonia Betitia Proba Good. Hortensia (orator) Good. No extant works, but speech quoted by Appian. Julia Balbilla Good. Saint Perpetua Good. Sulpicia I & II. Fair. Could separate. Terentia Good. Fabulla Non-existent. Categories Category:Ancient_Greek_women_writers Category:Ancient_Roman_women_writers Templates ... Χαῖρε! Salve! From your edits, it looks like you're interested in Ancient Greece and/or Ancient Rome. Would you like to join the WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome?