Foreign Bodies: Wet Nurses and Mothers in the Ancient World

Greek and Roman Classics // College of Liberal Arts
image of Melody with long black hair wearing light pattern blouse smiling at the camera

Please join us for a lecture with Melody Wauke Ph.D. candidate from Columbia University.

In the ancient Mediterranean, wet nurses were commonly employed to breastfeed babies whose mothers were unable or unwilling to do so. In this talk, Melody Wauke examines wet nurses in the imperial era through the lens of fictive kinship, demonstrating how they are consistently presented in the ancient sources in opposition to mothers.

OPEN TO: Public