Marina Warner on Eve, Lilith, Athena, Medusa

The Great Women Artists

Katy Hessel

Arts

4.8 • 877 Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast – for the second time! – is Dame Professor Marina Warner, one of the leading historians on this planet! A writer, lecturer, author of almost 40 books, and former president of the Royal Society of Literature, Marina Warner, according to the New Yorker, is an authority on things that don’t actually exist – from magic spells, monstrous beasts, to pregnant virgins. A world specialist on myths, fairy tales and stories from ancient times, Warner has written indefatigably for the last five decades on how these tales – some thousands of years old – still speak to our culture today and allow us to appreciate how they are shaped by the societies that tell them. I have poured over her books, from Alone of All Her Sex, her study of the cult of the Virgin Mary, to my favourite, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form, that so pertinently looks at how women are represented as allegories, bringing about ideas of actual power vs perceived power – for example, while Lady Liberty might be ubiquitous, how much power does she, a woman, actually have? Warner’s list of accolades is extensive: a distinguished fellow at All Souls College, Oxford; an honorary fellow at many more; the giver of the BBC’s Reith Lectures in 1994; and awarded doctorates of eleven universities in Britain, such as King's, the Royal College of Art, Oxford University, and more. But it’s stories and the power of imagination that fascinate her, and has what led me to be so captivated by her work. She has written – inside stories was the place I wanted to be, especially stories that went beyond any experience I could live myself at first hand. The very first stories I heard were saints’ lives: the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries of the Virgin Mary, the terrible gory violence of the martyrs’ ends … When I first encountered myths and fairy tales, the wonder I felt was pure wonder. But as I have grown older, wonder has taken on its double aspect, and become questioning too. And that is why I couldn’t be more excited to be, instead of looking at a woman artist, investigate the representation of female figures that we so often see across history and art history – Eve and Lilith from the Bible, and Medusa and Athena from mythology. MARINA'S BOOKS: https://www.marinawarner.com/ https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520227330/monuments-and-maidens https://www.waterstones.com/book/forms-of-enchantment/marina-warner/9780500021460 https://www.waterstones.com/book/joan-of-arc/marina-warner/9780198718796 https://www.waterstones.com/book/alone-of-all-her-sex/marina-warner/9780198718789 THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037 ENJOY!!! Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic Music by Ben Wetherfield https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome back to the Great Women Artists podcast. I am delighted to say that this
0:06.2	series is supported by the Levitt Collection, a vast and varied art collection of which a major portion
0:11.8	is dedicated to works by women artists. The Levit Collection's support for women in the arts is such
0:17.0	that preparations are in full swing for the creation of the new museum. FAMM, F-A-M,
0:23.6	female artists of the Mujan Museum, which will be opening in June 24 in Mujan, near Cannes in
0:30.5	the south of France. It will be the first major museum in mainland Europe, dedicated solely
0:36.1	to female artists and will exhibit a myriad of
0:39.0	artworks from the collection, from the Impressionists to Surrealism, plus modern and contemporary
0:43.7	art. It's opening next June, but in the meantime, stay tuned by following their Instagram,
0:49.2	fam.m. Mujan, all in the show notes. I hope you enjoy this episode.
1:05.7	Hello everyone and welcome to The Great Women Artist podcast with me, Katie Hessel.
1:17.4	Some of you might know me from The Great Women Artists, an Instagram account I set up in October 2015, which celebrates female artists on a daily basis, ranging from young graduates to old masters.
1:26.2	Well, in a similar fashion to the Instagram, this podcast is all about celebrating female artists from a variety of backgrounds and histories.
1:31.3	And I am so excited to be interviewing artists on their career or artists, writers, curators or general art lovers on the women artist who means most of them.
1:36.3	What I want this podcast to do is celebrate female artists in all different capacities,
1:41.3	so you, the listener, can gain a look into the greatest female
1:44.5	artists working now or from art history.
1:49.9	I am so excited to say that my guest on the Great Women Artists podcast for the second time
1:54.8	is Dame Professor Marina Warner, one of the leading historians on this planet.
2:00.0	A writer, lecturer, author of almost 40 books and former one of the leading historians on this planet. A writer, lecturer, author of almost 40 books,
2:03.6	and former president of the Royal Society of Literature, Marina Warner, according to the New Yorker,
2:08.8	is an authority on things that don't actually exist, from magic spells, monstrous beasts
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Katy Hessel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Katy Hessel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.