Activities per year
Abstract
Relying on palimpsestic representations of Cleopatra VII, filtered through earlier incarnations in popular culture – most notably, Elizabeth Taylor’s turn as the eponymous queen in Cleopatra (1963) – doll brands such as Mattel prioritise fashion and beauty in providing the dolls with both royal identities and identification with ancient Egypt. These dolls are not only representative of the ways that these brands have conceptualised Egyptian history, but also of the ways in which a vague and compressed version of ancient Egypt has been materially conceived in popular culture. These dolls, which are designed to appeal to broad publics, enable an exploration of racecraft and of specific gender expressions within commodifications of Egyptian queenship for modern audiences in the global north. The ambiguous racializing of Barbie dolls invites an intersectional lens to examining the incongruences between historical events and popular cultural representations of Egypt, queenship, and Cleopatra.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Queens in Antiquity and the Present |
Subtitle of host publication | Speculative Visions and Critical Histories |
Editors | Patricia Kim, Anastasia Tchaplyghine |
Publisher | Bloomsbury |
Chapter | 17 |
Pages | 245-260 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Edition | 1st |
ISBN (Print) | 9781350380882 |
Publication status | Accepted/In press - Aug 2024 |
Activities
- 1 Oral presentation for an academic audience
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Barbie, Perpetual Queen of the Egyptians
Hinds, A. R. (Speaker)
24 Sept 2021Activity: Talk or presentation for an academic audience › Oral presentation for an academic audience