At its most basic level, the course examines ancient representation of eroticism against the background of Greek and Roman constructions of gender and sexuality, as well as the medical understanding of the human body in antiquity. It also explores intersections with the themes of ancient humour, myth, and magic, and explores visual strategies of 'othering' by means of sexualized representation. This is, however, more than a standard course on 'gender and sexuality' in antiquity, or on 'text and image': It also examines the hedonic structures and libidinal economies of the works of art themselves, and relates them to changing notions of pleasure and desire in antiquity (from the 6th century BCE to the 4th century CE), as well as to social, cultural, and philosophical constructions of personhood. The course avails itself of the rich scholarship that has been produced in the wake of the foundational works by K. Dover (Greek Homosexuality, 1978) and M. Foucault (The History of Sexuality I-III, 1976; 1984).