Body in History Keynote Lecture: "Torsos are supposed to be anonymous”

Week 7: Body in History Keynote Lecture: "Torsos are supposed to be anonymous”

Professor Cora Gilroy Ware

Friday 6 March 2026, 1.30pm - 3.30pm

Learning Centre, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities

All welcome

Professor Gilroy Ware's talk will centre on sculpted torsos in the work of and imaginations of African American female artists in the first half of the twentieth century.

Biography:

Professor Cora Gilroy Ware is Associate Professor in the History of Art at Oxford. In her publications, exhibitions and teaching, she seeks to challenge the assumed universality of Western hegemonic perspectives. She is particularly interested in the fabrication of ideal beauty from the 17th century to the present day, and the role of classicising sculpture and pictorial art in the reification of "racial” difference. She is the author of The Classical Body in Romantic Britain (2020).

Please let us know any questions to bihn@history.ox.ac.uk

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Body in History Network is part of TORCH Student Networks