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Lien Foubert

Radboud University Nijmegen, History, Faculty Member

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https://www.ru.nl/en/people/foubert-l

Since 2012 I am a faculty member of the department of History, Art History and Classics at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. My research expertise covers a broad range of topics, in which – more often than not – I combine the know-how of the field of Classics with that of Cultural Studies. I often apply this multi-disciplinary approach in my teaching activities as well. Topics that I have studied in the past include women’s history, premodern examples of tourism and visual and non-visual representations of imperial women in Rome, to name but a few. At present, my research focuses on the gendered dynamics of changing societies and the strategies of individuals and groups to restore or maintain a status-quo. Parallel to this, and intrinsically bound with it, I am experimenting with new ways to build bridges between scholarship, the Arts and society, among which are graphic design, photography and curatorial practices.
Address: PO 9103
6500 HD nijmegen
The Netherlands

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Papers by Lien Foubert

• L. Foubert, ‘Imperial Women and the Dynamics of Power. Managing the Soft Power of Domitia Longina and Julia Titi’, In A. Raimondi Cominesi & N. de Haan (eds.), Emperor Domitian. God on Earth (Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities (PALMA)), Leiden, 2021, pp. 97-100.

L. Foubert, ‘The Spinning of the Wheels. Women's Travel Stories in Latin Funerary Inscriptions ('Ruedas que giran: historias de viajes femeninos en inscripciones funerarias latinas')’, Gérion 38 (2020) 137-156.

Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua, 2020

This contribution examines Latin funerary inscriptions in which the movements of middle-class wom... more This contribution examines Latin funerary inscriptions in which the movements of middle-class women within and beyond the Italian peninsula constitute the focus point of the text. It aims to shed light on how these texts relate to other social discourses, such as those centred on class and gender. Travel is by default a disruptive activity as it took women out of the household and into the public world. When a commemorator made the deliberate choice to include a reference to a woman’s journey, he or she must have been well aware of the fact that such an inclusion deviated from the canonical description of a woman as an ideal matrona. In this article, I will argue that this awareness and the desire to conform to the dominant ideological discourses of their time led to the embedment of these small travel accounts in a broader discourse of ideal female conduct.

L. Foubert, ‘Let’s Meet at Baiae: A Journey of 2,000 Years to the Edge of Europe’, Mediterranean Historical Review 34 (2019) 27-48.

Mediterranean Historical Review, 2019

Review of: Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity (L. Caldwell)

Mnemosyne, 2017

Review of: Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome (R. Langlands)

Review of: Maternal Megalomania: Julia Domna and the Imperial Politics of Motherhood (J. Langford)

American Journal of Philology, 2014

Review of: The Roman Family in the Empire. Rome, Italy, and Beyond (ed. M. George)

Mnemosyne, 2007

L. Foubert, 'Men and women tourists’ desire to see the world: ‘curiosity’ and ‘a longing to learn’ as (self-) fashioning motifs (first–fifth centuries C.E.)', in Journal of Tourism History 10 (2018), pp. 5-20.

Although tourism is often defined as characteristically modern, this article examines a series of... more Although tourism is often defined as characteristically modern, this article examines a series of Classical and early medieval texts (produced between the first and the fifth centuries C.E.) that challenge this view. After defining tourism as travel in the pursuit of enjoyment, the article demonstrates that touring for the sake of curiosity and desire was a familiar element of Roman life and a common component of popular discourse. Writers in Antiquity recognised curiosity and desire as catalysts for human movement. They characterised travellers as curiosity-seeking sightseers, a representation that was not without ambiguity as both male and female travellers were criticised for exhibiting restless behaviour if they lost sight of their entrusted primary tasks en route. Even so, there seems to have been a common perception in Roman Antiquity that travellers often felt a desire to see for themselves what they had previously only heard or read about.

L. Foubert, ‘Migrant women in P.Oxy and the port cities of Roman Egypt: tracing women’s travel behaviour in papyrological sources’, in L. de Ligt and L.E. Tacoma (eds.), Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire, Leiden, 2016, pp. 285-304.

In this contribution, I shed some new light on the nature of women’s mobility, both within and be... more In this contribution, I shed some new light on the nature of women’s mobility, both within and beyond the borders of Egypt, using papyri and
ostraca. I do so by carrying out two case studies. First, the Oxyrhynchus
papyri will be examined with the aim of clarifying some of the characteristics of attested female mobility. In my second case study, I focus on the port cities of Egypt’s eastern desert. It will be argued that mobility constituted an essential characteristic of the eastern desert. Using gender as a framework, both case studies will illustrate the dynamic interaction of agency (who decides to travel?) and structure (how does one travel?) in the mechanisms that underlie human mobility. Besides painting a picture of the diversity of female mobility that appears in papyri and ostraca, I also highlight the relations between
women travellers and their surroundings.

L. Foubert, 'Crowded and emptied houses as status markers of aristocratic women in Rome: the literary commonplace of the domus frequentata', in Eugesta 6 (2016).

In Republican and imperial Rome, the house was seen as a locus of public life and a symbol of the... more In Republican and imperial Rome, the house was seen as a locus of public life and a symbol of the status of its male residents. The influential position of elite women turned the houses that they owned, or the residential space with which they were associated the most, into appealing elements of literary discourse. Central to all the anecdotes discussed in this contribution is the idea that a woman who gathers people around her might, at some point, become a political force to be reckoned with. Modern scholarship has often characterized the Julio-Claudian period as a period of trial and error. The portrayals of
Julio-Claudian women illustrate this most clearly: whereas state-regulated media, such as imperial coins or senatorial decrees, show that these women were given a visible role in public life and were consequently considered as influential members of society, they were
never recognized as formal players in the struggle for power. Describing their residence and its visitors enabled ancient writers to point this out. The women whose domus frequentata is discussed in this contribution are: Verres’ mistress Chelidon, Clodia Metelli, Cornelia, Octavia, Livia, Agrippina the Elder, Messalina, and Agrippina the Younger.

http://eugesta.recherche.univ-lille3.fr/revue/eng/issues/issue-6-2016/

L. Foubert, 'Vesta and Julio-Claudian women in imperial propaganda', in Ancient Society 45 (2015), pp. 187-204.

L. Foubert, 'The lure of an exotic destination: the politics of women’s travels in the early Roman Empire', Hermes 144 (2016), pp. 462-487.

Hermes, 2016

This article discusses how women’s travels in the early imperial period threatened the ‘natural’ ... more This article discusses how women’s travels in the early imperial period threatened the ‘natural’ socio-cultural hierarchy of the Roman upper-classes. In a first part, the main threads of the ideological discourse on female mobility will be mapped by means of an examination of a senatorial debate during the reign of Tiberius in Tacitus’ Annals, uncovering layers of meaning that have remained unnoticed. The second and third parts will be devoted to literary motifs that have shaped the characterizations of men and women travellers to illustrate the extents to which Roman travel is gendered. Central to this examination is the Roman elite’s fear of the corrupting and disrupting power of the exotica of foreign nations and its effects on men’s and women’s Romanness.

L. Foubert - D. Breeze, 'Mobility in the Roman Empire', in J. Leary (ed.), Past Mobilities. Archaeological Approaches to Movement and Mobility, Ashgate: Farnham, 2014, 175-186.

L. Foubert, ‘The impact of women’s travels on military imagery in the Julio-Claudian period’, in O. Hekster – T. Kaiser (eds.), Frontiers in the Roman World (Impact of Empire 9), Leiden, 2011, pp. 349-362.

L. Foubert, 'Female travellers in Roman Britain: Vibia Pacata and Julia Lucilla' in: E.A. Hemelrijk - G. Woolf (eds.), Women and the Roman City in the West, pp. 391-403

L. Foubert, 'The Palatine dwelling of the mater familias: houses as symbolic space in the Julio-Claudian period', in Klio 92 (2010) 65-82.

The physical domus represented the status of imperial women and their position in society. Just l... more The physical domus represented the status of imperial women and their position in society. Just like the male residence, the female residence was a lieu de me´moire. Activities taking place within the house were often evaluated along the lines of the ideal of female conduct. Livia’s actions on the Palatine Hill show that she was well aware of the symbolic power of her residence and of the importance of presenting herself as being in agreement with the traditional standards for female behaviour. The celebration of Diva Augusta on the Palatine and the preservation of (a part of) the Domus Augusti, first as the living space of the matres familias of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and later as an object of veneration, shows that the Palatine structure should not only be seen as the living space of emperors. The female component was just as present and played a role in the creation of lieux de me´moire.

L. Foubert, 'Literary Constructions of Female Identities: the Parallel Lives of Julio-Claudian Women in Tacitus' Annals', Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History XV (ed. C. Deroux)[Collection Latomus, vol. 323, 2010]pp. 344-365.

L. Foubert, ‘Het huis als symbool: Augustus’ woning op de Palatijn’, in C. Hupperts – E. Jans (eds.), Laus Romae. Hoofdstukken uit de geschiedenis van Rome, Leeuwarden: Eisma Edumedia, 2010, pp. 46-54.

L. Foubert – G. de Kleijn, ‘De samenleving in de Grieks-Romeinse Oudheid’, in N. de Haan – S. Mols (eds.), Cultuurgeschiedenis van de Oudheid, Zwolle: Wbooks, 2011, pp. 229-247.

L. Foubert, ‘Bij moeder op schoot: Nero en Agrippina’, in ET.VT 26 (2007), pp.176-186.

• L. Foubert, ‘Imperial Women and the Dynamics of Power. Managing the Soft Power of Domitia Longina and Julia Titi’, In A. Raimondi Cominesi & N. de Haan (eds.), Emperor Domitian. God on Earth (Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities (PALMA)), Leiden, 2021, pp. 97-100.

L. Foubert, ‘The Spinning of the Wheels. Women's Travel Stories in Latin Funerary Inscriptions ('Ruedas que giran: historias de viajes femeninos en inscripciones funerarias latinas')’, Gérion 38 (2020) 137-156.

Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua, 2020

This contribution examines Latin funerary inscriptions in which the movements of middle-class wom... more This contribution examines Latin funerary inscriptions in which the movements of middle-class women within and beyond the Italian peninsula constitute the focus point of the text. It aims to shed light on how these texts relate to other social discourses, such as those centred on class and gender. Travel is by default a disruptive activity as it took women out of the household and into the public world. When a commemorator made the deliberate choice to include a reference to a woman’s journey, he or she must have been well aware of the fact that such an inclusion deviated from the canonical description of a woman as an ideal matrona. In this article, I will argue that this awareness and the desire to conform to the dominant ideological discourses of their time led to the embedment of these small travel accounts in a broader discourse of ideal female conduct.

L. Foubert, ‘Let’s Meet at Baiae: A Journey of 2,000 Years to the Edge of Europe’, Mediterranean Historical Review 34 (2019) 27-48.

Mediterranean Historical Review, 2019

Review of: Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity (L. Caldwell)

Mnemosyne, 2017

Review of: Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome (R. Langlands)

Review of: Maternal Megalomania: Julia Domna and the Imperial Politics of Motherhood (J. Langford)

American Journal of Philology, 2014

Review of: The Roman Family in the Empire. Rome, Italy, and Beyond (ed. M. George)

Mnemosyne, 2007

L. Foubert, 'Men and women tourists’ desire to see the world: ‘curiosity’ and ‘a longing to learn’ as (self-) fashioning motifs (first–fifth centuries C.E.)', in Journal of Tourism History 10 (2018), pp. 5-20.

Although tourism is often defined as characteristically modern, this article examines a series of... more Although tourism is often defined as characteristically modern, this article examines a series of Classical and early medieval texts (produced between the first and the fifth centuries C.E.) that challenge this view. After defining tourism as travel in the pursuit of enjoyment, the article demonstrates that touring for the sake of curiosity and desire was a familiar element of Roman life and a common component of popular discourse. Writers in Antiquity recognised curiosity and desire as catalysts for human movement. They characterised travellers as curiosity-seeking sightseers, a representation that was not without ambiguity as both male and female travellers were criticised for exhibiting restless behaviour if they lost sight of their entrusted primary tasks en route. Even so, there seems to have been a common perception in Roman Antiquity that travellers often felt a desire to see for themselves what they had previously only heard or read about.

L. Foubert, ‘Migrant women in P.Oxy and the port cities of Roman Egypt: tracing women’s travel behaviour in papyrological sources’, in L. de Ligt and L.E. Tacoma (eds.), Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire, Leiden, 2016, pp. 285-304.

In this contribution, I shed some new light on the nature of women’s mobility, both within and be... more In this contribution, I shed some new light on the nature of women’s mobility, both within and beyond the borders of Egypt, using papyri and
ostraca. I do so by carrying out two case studies. First, the Oxyrhynchus
papyri will be examined with the aim of clarifying some of the characteristics of attested female mobility. In my second case study, I focus on the port cities of Egypt’s eastern desert. It will be argued that mobility constituted an essential characteristic of the eastern desert. Using gender as a framework, both case studies will illustrate the dynamic interaction of agency (who decides to travel?) and structure (how does one travel?) in the mechanisms that underlie human mobility. Besides painting a picture of the diversity of female mobility that appears in papyri and ostraca, I also highlight the relations between
women travellers and their surroundings.

L. Foubert, 'Crowded and emptied houses as status markers of aristocratic women in Rome: the literary commonplace of the domus frequentata', in Eugesta 6 (2016).

In Republican and imperial Rome, the house was seen as a locus of public life and a symbol of the... more In Republican and imperial Rome, the house was seen as a locus of public life and a symbol of the status of its male residents. The influential position of elite women turned the houses that they owned, or the residential space with which they were associated the most, into appealing elements of literary discourse. Central to all the anecdotes discussed in this contribution is the idea that a woman who gathers people around her might, at some point, become a political force to be reckoned with. Modern scholarship has often characterized the Julio-Claudian period as a period of trial and error. The portrayals of
Julio-Claudian women illustrate this most clearly: whereas state-regulated media, such as imperial coins or senatorial decrees, show that these women were given a visible role in public life and were consequently considered as influential members of society, they were
never recognized as formal players in the struggle for power. Describing their residence and its visitors enabled ancient writers to point this out. The women whose domus frequentata is discussed in this contribution are: Verres’ mistress Chelidon, Clodia Metelli, Cornelia, Octavia, Livia, Agrippina the Elder, Messalina, and Agrippina the Younger.

http://eugesta.recherche.univ-lille3.fr/revue/eng/issues/issue-6-2016/

L. Foubert, 'Vesta and Julio-Claudian women in imperial propaganda', in Ancient Society 45 (2015), pp. 187-204.

L. Foubert, 'The lure of an exotic destination: the politics of women’s travels in the early Roman Empire', Hermes 144 (2016), pp. 462-487.

Hermes, 2016

This article discusses how women’s travels in the early imperial period threatened the ‘natural’ ... more This article discusses how women’s travels in the early imperial period threatened the ‘natural’ socio-cultural hierarchy of the Roman upper-classes. In a first part, the main threads of the ideological discourse on female mobility will be mapped by means of an examination of a senatorial debate during the reign of Tiberius in Tacitus’ Annals, uncovering layers of meaning that have remained unnoticed. The second and third parts will be devoted to literary motifs that have shaped the characterizations of men and women travellers to illustrate the extents to which Roman travel is gendered. Central to this examination is the Roman elite’s fear of the corrupting and disrupting power of the exotica of foreign nations and its effects on men’s and women’s Romanness.

L. Foubert - D. Breeze, 'Mobility in the Roman Empire', in J. Leary (ed.), Past Mobilities. Archaeological Approaches to Movement and Mobility, Ashgate: Farnham, 2014, 175-186.

L. Foubert, ‘The impact of women’s travels on military imagery in the Julio-Claudian period’, in O. Hekster – T. Kaiser (eds.), Frontiers in the Roman World (Impact of Empire 9), Leiden, 2011, pp. 349-362.

L. Foubert, 'Female travellers in Roman Britain: Vibia Pacata and Julia Lucilla' in: E.A. Hemelrijk - G. Woolf (eds.), Women and the Roman City in the West, pp. 391-403

L. Foubert, 'The Palatine dwelling of the mater familias: houses as symbolic space in the Julio-Claudian period', in Klio 92 (2010) 65-82.

The physical domus represented the status of imperial women and their position in society. Just l... more The physical domus represented the status of imperial women and their position in society. Just like the male residence, the female residence was a lieu de me´moire. Activities taking place within the house were often evaluated along the lines of the ideal of female conduct. Livia’s actions on the Palatine Hill show that she was well aware of the symbolic power of her residence and of the importance of presenting herself as being in agreement with the traditional standards for female behaviour. The celebration of Diva Augusta on the Palatine and the preservation of (a part of) the Domus Augusti, first as the living space of the matres familias of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and later as an object of veneration, shows that the Palatine structure should not only be seen as the living space of emperors. The female component was just as present and played a role in the creation of lieux de me´moire.

L. Foubert, 'Literary Constructions of Female Identities: the Parallel Lives of Julio-Claudian Women in Tacitus' Annals', Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History XV (ed. C. Deroux)[Collection Latomus, vol. 323, 2010]pp. 344-365.

L. Foubert, ‘Het huis als symbool: Augustus’ woning op de Palatijn’, in C. Hupperts – E. Jans (eds.), Laus Romae. Hoofdstukken uit de geschiedenis van Rome, Leeuwarden: Eisma Edumedia, 2010, pp. 46-54.

L. Foubert – G. de Kleijn, ‘De samenleving in de Grieks-Romeinse Oudheid’, in N. de Haan – S. Mols (eds.), Cultuurgeschiedenis van de Oudheid, Zwolle: Wbooks, 2011, pp. 229-247.

L. Foubert, ‘Bij moeder op schoot: Nero en Agrippina’, in ET.VT 26 (2007), pp.176-186.

‘The politics of female travel: the exotic lure of a provincial destination’, Seminar in the Classical Antiquity Research Seminar Spring 2014 series: Travel and Movement in the Ancient World, 4 June 2014, Aarhus University.

'Migrant women in P.Oxy and the port cities of Roman Egypt: tracing women’s travel behaviour in papyrological sources', conference 'Moving Romans. Migration in the Roman Principate', 8-10 January 2014, The Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome.

'The restless life of Fabiola: space and the female traveler’s identity in Late Antiquity', Expert Meeting on Tourism and Text (Radboud University Nijmegen, 24 January 2013)

'Women's Travel Stories in Latin Funerary Inscriptions', Leiden, 22 November 2012.

'Keizerlijke vrouwen op de dool: de do’s en don’ts van deugdzaam reizen’, keynote lecture symposium Antieken in nesten, KU Leuven, 15 maart 2012.

‘Ancient women en route: the organisation, representation and impact of female travelling in the Roman Empire from the 1st to the 4th century A.D.’, Conference Gender and the Roman City: Women and Civic Life in the Western Provinces, Amsterdam 14-16 december 2011. (+ poster)

Call for articles: "Who carries the luggage? Gendered discourses on companionship in travel writing" (eds. L. Foubert, F. Meens & T. Sintobin)

by Lien Foubert and Floris Meens

It is generally assumed that early travel reports were predominantly written by men because they ... more It is generally assumed that early travel reports were predominantly written by men because they moved more freely in the public sphere. For the same reason, so scholars have argued, women did not appear in travel literature as travel companions but rather as objects of desire or as someone to return home to. Since the 1970s in particular, the absence of women in the mobile societies of Europe and beyond has been questioned. After a reappraisal of diaries, letters, scientific reports, etc. of travelling women in the 19th and 20th centuries, it has become clear that women undertook voyages of their own, some in companionship of other women, others in companionship of men. Modern scholarship has acknowledged this more nuanced image of the practice of travel, but the ways in which men and women travellers interacted with each other while en route have not yet been a systematic focus of scholarly attention. The present volume aims to fill that gap.

Europe and its worlds: cultural mobility in, to and from Europe

Unpublished dissertation: "Women Going Public. Ideals and Conflicts in the Representation of Julio-Claudian Women."