another painting with a colorful story behind it.
â The Return of Persephone by the Victorian Frederic Leighton captures the idea. Hades, the god of the underworld whose land is named after him, desired Persephone. While she was picking flowers in a field with other maidens, he burst forth from a crevice in the ground andââshe inserted a suggestive inflectionââ plucked her like a bloom herself. He carried her off and the abduction grieved her mother, goddess of the harvest, who appealed to Zeus. He decided Persephone must return to the land of the living to restore its verdancy, but unfortunately Persephone had eaten a pomegranate, the food of the dead. This required her to revisit the underworld throughout the year, and since then the seasons of growth wax and wane with her presence and absence.â Lou finished the lecture with a final comment: âEven the ancients attributed to woman the power to influence her environs.â
The class ended and the hall emptied as she gathered her papers together, ready to head back to her office on the east side of the social sciences wing. In front of her, seven or eight girls swarmed the few males leaving the room, vying for favor. So much for feminine autonomy!
Minutes later Lou was in her office, shutting down her computer and tidying her desktop in preparation for a meeting with Dr. Oliver Upton, head of the theater department and co-author of her recent paper promoting womenâs studies through the arts. He was one of her few academic proponents and a conspirator with her in a venture Platte River University might not officially approve, as it wasnât strictly educational even though it would be advantageous to the institution.
Months ago, before the media got hold of the news about the movie to be shot on location in Denver and area by a subsidiary of one of the big Hollywood studios, Oliver nosed it out through his film studio contacts.
It was a prequel to The Life and Times of Buffalo Bill, a western starring Brad Pitt, which had made enough profit to warrant the film companyâs return to the area for a second serving.
From what sheâd read about the first movieâLou hadnât bothered to see it herself, though all of her students raved about itâ Buffalo Bill wasnât just a âdusterâ reeking of testosterone. The director shone favorable light upon frontier women of the Wild West, such as Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane, and Lou had even referred in her classes to the film as an object lesson for early suffrage.
With his information about a prequel coming to town, Oliver directly approached Lou, conjecturing correctly that sheâd be interested in his idea, as theyâd pooled information to their mutual benefit at other times. Lou and Oliver clarified their prospects and agreed to work together for ostensibly altruistic ends, although Lou figured Oliver was as interested in his advancement as she was in hers. He wanted a piece of the movie action for his own monetary reward hidden under the banner of publicly funded arts (sheâd leave the ethics of that for him to defend). Lou, on the other hand, wanted primarily to secure her university tenure, which offered its own compensations.
So Lou and Oliver had waited for the movie company to call for bids by local trades in the Denver area, including costumers, and the announcement was made a fortnight ago. Incognito was certain to be the main competitor of PRUâs theater department, but Lou was bound and determined for the name of Platte River University instead to appear in the credit roll of the film. And she, Dr. Lou Chapman, wanted to be known as the one to snag the competitionâs head designerânone other than Aglaia Klassen, highly visible emerging artist and personal friend of the tenure committeeâs Dayna Yates, associate head of sociology. If Aglaia were to accept the job Lou was arranging for her and thus disable the
â The Return of Persephone by the Victorian Frederic Leighton captures the idea. Hades, the god of the underworld whose land is named after him, desired Persephone. While she was picking flowers in a field with other maidens, he burst forth from a crevice in the ground andââshe inserted a suggestive inflectionââ plucked her like a bloom herself. He carried her off and the abduction grieved her mother, goddess of the harvest, who appealed to Zeus. He decided Persephone must return to the land of the living to restore its verdancy, but unfortunately Persephone had eaten a pomegranate, the food of the dead. This required her to revisit the underworld throughout the year, and since then the seasons of growth wax and wane with her presence and absence.â Lou finished the lecture with a final comment: âEven the ancients attributed to woman the power to influence her environs.â
The class ended and the hall emptied as she gathered her papers together, ready to head back to her office on the east side of the social sciences wing. In front of her, seven or eight girls swarmed the few males leaving the room, vying for favor. So much for feminine autonomy!
Minutes later Lou was in her office, shutting down her computer and tidying her desktop in preparation for a meeting with Dr. Oliver Upton, head of the theater department and co-author of her recent paper promoting womenâs studies through the arts. He was one of her few academic proponents and a conspirator with her in a venture Platte River University might not officially approve, as it wasnât strictly educational even though it would be advantageous to the institution.
Months ago, before the media got hold of the news about the movie to be shot on location in Denver and area by a subsidiary of one of the big Hollywood studios, Oliver nosed it out through his film studio contacts.
It was a prequel to The Life and Times of Buffalo Bill, a western starring Brad Pitt, which had made enough profit to warrant the film companyâs return to the area for a second serving.
From what sheâd read about the first movieâLou hadnât bothered to see it herself, though all of her students raved about itâ Buffalo Bill wasnât just a âdusterâ reeking of testosterone. The director shone favorable light upon frontier women of the Wild West, such as Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane, and Lou had even referred in her classes to the film as an object lesson for early suffrage.
With his information about a prequel coming to town, Oliver directly approached Lou, conjecturing correctly that sheâd be interested in his idea, as theyâd pooled information to their mutual benefit at other times. Lou and Oliver clarified their prospects and agreed to work together for ostensibly altruistic ends, although Lou figured Oliver was as interested in his advancement as she was in hers. He wanted a piece of the movie action for his own monetary reward hidden under the banner of publicly funded arts (sheâd leave the ethics of that for him to defend). Lou, on the other hand, wanted primarily to secure her university tenure, which offered its own compensations.
So Lou and Oliver had waited for the movie company to call for bids by local trades in the Denver area, including costumers, and the announcement was made a fortnight ago. Incognito was certain to be the main competitor of PRUâs theater department, but Lou was bound and determined for the name of Platte River University instead to appear in the credit roll of the film. And she, Dr. Lou Chapman, wanted to be known as the one to snag the competitionâs head designerânone other than Aglaia Klassen, highly visible emerging artist and personal friend of the tenure committeeâs Dayna Yates, associate head of sociology. If Aglaia were to accept the job Lou was arranging for her and thus disable the
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