Customer Relations: Working with Clients in Greek Epigram
Kate Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Classics
Abstract
In this talk, as part of a larger project on the depiction of labor in Greek epigram, I explore representations of service sector jobs, such as sex work, medicine, and commissioned poetry, in Hellenistic and Imperial epigrams. Although some recent scholarship has begun to think about ancient sex work from a labor perspective, most generalizing studies of work in the ancient world still focus on product manufacture. These poems offer valuable insight into the way the experience of doing these types of jobs overlap and differ. The poems typically focalize the customer’s perspective, allowing us to think about the complicated power dynamics that emerge from the client-customer relationship.
Bio
Kathryn (Kate) Wilson is Senior Lecturer in Classics at WashU. Her research focuses on Greek literature of the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, with particular attention to epigram, literary representations of work, and the social dynamics of everyday life in the ancient Mediterranean. As part of a broader project on labor in Greek epigram, her current work examines how a range of service-oriented professions—such as caregiving, healing, and commissioned artistic production—are portrayed in poetic texts. Her scholarship explores questions of power, perspective, and economic relationships, especially as they emerge through the lens of client–provider interactions in ancient literature.