This talk explores how the ancient Greeks served as a rallying point for Caribbean diasporic communities in New York City in the 1970s. Rosa Andújar, an Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Studies at Columbia University, will discuss how Greek tragedies featuring obstinate figures resisting powerful authorities (such as Prometheus and Antigone) and oppressed groups (like the enslaved women of Troy) provided important models for minoritized communities in the United States.

Professor Andújar will consider two case studies: firstly, the New York-based Puerto Rican Traveling Theater Company, which brought an adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone to the Boricua communities of New York (and Boston) in 1972; and secondly, a production of Euripides’ Trojan Women staged by the growing Hispanic student population of Mercy College. In this discussion, Professor Andújar will explore how these communities identified with these ancient plays, viewing them as reflections of their experiences as marginalized groups in the United States.

Professor Andújar’s numerous honors and awards include the 2022 AJP Best Article Prize, a 2023 British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, a 2024 Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship, and the 2025 Pedro Henríquez Ureña Chair (Cátedra Pedro Henríquez Ureña) hosted by the Dominican National Library in Santo Domingo. Since 2024, she has been the editor of the American Journal of Philology.

Professor Andújar joined the faculty of Barnard in 2026 after fourteen years of teaching in the United Kingdom, where she served on the faculty of both University College London (2012–2016) and King’s College London (2016–2025). She holds BA degrees from Wellesley College (2003) and the University of Cambridge (King’s College, 2005), as well as an MA (2008) and a PhD (2011) in Classics from Princeton University.

Campus community only, please.

This event is sponsored by the Department of Greek and Roman Studies, and co-sponsored by the following departments and programs: Africana Studies, American Studies, Drama, English, Hispanic Studies, Latin American and Latinx Studies, and Urban Studies.