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I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast \u2013 for the second time! \u2013 is Dame Professor Marina Warner, one of the leading historians on this planet!\n\nA writer, lecturer, author of almost 40 books, and former president of the Royal Society of Literature, Marina Warner, according to the New Yorker, is an authority on things that don\u2019t actually exist \u2013 from magic spells, monstrous beasts, to pregnant virgins. \n\nA world specialist on myths, fairy tales and stories from ancient times, Warner has written indefatigably for the last five decades on how these tales \u2013 some thousands of years old \u2013 still speak to our culture today and allow us to appreciate how they are shaped by the societies that tell them.\n\nI have poured over her books, from Alone of All Her Sex, her study of the cult of the Virgin Mary, to my favourite, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form, that so pertinently looks at how women are represented as allegories, bringing about ideas of actual power vs perceived power \u2013 for example, while Lady Liberty might be ubiquitous, how much power does she, a woman, actually have?\n\nWarner\u2019s list of accolades is extensive: a distinguished fellow at All Souls College, Oxford; an honorary fellow at many more; the giver of the BBC\u2019s Reith Lectures in 1994; and awarded doctorates of eleven universities in Britain, such as King's, the Royal College of Art, Oxford University, and more. \n\nBut it\u2019s stories and the power of imagination that fascinate her, and has what led me to be so captivated by her work. She has written \u2013 inside stories was the place I wanted to be, especially stories that went beyond any experience I could live myself at first hand. The very first stories I heard were saints\u2019 lives: the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries of the Virgin Mary, the terrible gory violence of the martyrs\u2019 ends \u2026 When I first encountered myths and fairy tales, the wonder I felt was pure wonder. But as I have grown older, wonder has taken on its double aspect, and become questioning too.\n\nAnd that is why I couldn\u2019t be more excited to be, instead of looking at a woman artist, investigate the representation of female figures that we so often see across history and art history \u2013 Eve and Lilith from the Bible, and Medusa and Athena from mythology.\n\nMARINA'S BOOKS: \nhttps://www.marinawarner.com/\nhttps://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520227330/monuments-and-maidens\nhttps://www.waterstones.com/book/forms-of-enchantment/marina-warner/9780500021460\nhttps://www.waterstones.com/book/joan-of-arc/marina-warner/9780198718796\nhttps://www.waterstones.com/book/alone-of-all-her-sex/marina-warner/9780198718789\n\nTHIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:\n\nhttps://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037\n\nENJOY!!!\n\nFollow us:\nKaty Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel\nSound editing by Nada Smiljanic\nMusic by Ben Wetherfield\n\nhttps://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/