The ancient Romans thought and wrote a lot about sex, sexual desire, gender, and gender identity. Much of their literature is more open and explicit about these topics than is most modern European and American writing. Recent scholarship has argued, however, that their notion of sexuality/ sexual identity was radically different from our own. 

In this course, we will explore how the Romans organized the world of sex by reading a wide range of texts from the Roman period in English translation, all of which have to do with the experience of sexual desire and/ or gender identity and presentation.

This course investigates both the impact of the Roman invasion upon Britain and also the role and function of Britain within the wider Roman empire.