Online Talk · The Dark Gift: Aphrodite, Persephone, and the Beauty Conferred by Death with Mythologist Maryam Sayyad, PhD
Monday, June 2, 2025
7pm ET (NYC Time)
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org . A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
This talk is an expanded version of an original iteration delivered at Morbid Anatomy’s 2024 Memento Mori Festival.
No trinket and no mere deception, Aphrodite’s beauty is a central player in the genesis of the cosmos. But what makes her beautiful? Is it her golden smile, her immortalizing garments, her sidelong glance? According to one myth, it is something far darker: what makes Aphrodite beautiful is death. The Classical world recognized an inextricable link between love and death, a bond mythologized in encounters—both competitive and collaborative—between the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, and Persephone, the Queen of the Dead. When these goddesses compete, the result is tragedy. But when they collaborate—as in the initiatory tale of Eros and Psyche—they usher in apotheosis, immortality, and eternal union. In this story, Persephone gifts Aphrodite a dark cosmetic that enhances her beauty.
This lecture explores the meaning of this mysterious beauty aid, tracing it back to the mytho-philosophy of beauty in the Classical world and the symbolism of the pentagram, then tracing it inward to the beauty conferred by death in lived experience.
Mythologist Maryam Sayyad examines what Persephone’s gift reveals about the hidden value of death—and the possibility that this much-maligned force holds something unbearably sacred at its core.
Maryam Sayyad is an independent scholar and noetic artist driven by a lifelong quest for truth. With a PhD in mythological studies, a philosophical mindset, a visual and theater arts background, and an evergreen urge to distill meaning from myths, she can be found writing, translating, speaking, teaching, and creating noetic events. She is an event director for arts and education organizations, and a Contributing Artist at the Philosophical Research Society where she also serves on the Board of Directors. In 2025, she is translating a book on The Thousand and One Nights, staging a multimedia mythological musical titled Twilight of the Empress, and curating the "Mythos of Iran Conference, 2" in Los Angeles.
Monday, June 2, 2025
7pm ET (NYC Time)
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org . A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
This talk is an expanded version of an original iteration delivered at Morbid Anatomy’s 2024 Memento Mori Festival.
No trinket and no mere deception, Aphrodite’s beauty is a central player in the genesis of the cosmos. But what makes her beautiful? Is it her golden smile, her immortalizing garments, her sidelong glance? According to one myth, it is something far darker: what makes Aphrodite beautiful is death. The Classical world recognized an inextricable link between love and death, a bond mythologized in encounters—both competitive and collaborative—between the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, and Persephone, the Queen of the Dead. When these goddesses compete, the result is tragedy. But when they collaborate—as in the initiatory tale of Eros and Psyche—they usher in apotheosis, immortality, and eternal union. In this story, Persephone gifts Aphrodite a dark cosmetic that enhances her beauty.
This lecture explores the meaning of this mysterious beauty aid, tracing it back to the mytho-philosophy of beauty in the Classical world and the symbolism of the pentagram, then tracing it inward to the beauty conferred by death in lived experience.
Mythologist Maryam Sayyad examines what Persephone’s gift reveals about the hidden value of death—and the possibility that this much-maligned force holds something unbearably sacred at its core.
Maryam Sayyad is an independent scholar and noetic artist driven by a lifelong quest for truth. With a PhD in mythological studies, a philosophical mindset, a visual and theater arts background, and an evergreen urge to distill meaning from myths, she can be found writing, translating, speaking, teaching, and creating noetic events. She is an event director for arts and education organizations, and a Contributing Artist at the Philosophical Research Society where she also serves on the Board of Directors. In 2025, she is translating a book on The Thousand and One Nights, staging a multimedia mythological musical titled Twilight of the Empress, and curating the "Mythos of Iran Conference, 2" in Los Angeles.
Monday, June 2, 2025
7pm ET (NYC Time)
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org . A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
This talk is an expanded version of an original iteration delivered at Morbid Anatomy’s 2024 Memento Mori Festival.
No trinket and no mere deception, Aphrodite’s beauty is a central player in the genesis of the cosmos. But what makes her beautiful? Is it her golden smile, her immortalizing garments, her sidelong glance? According to one myth, it is something far darker: what makes Aphrodite beautiful is death. The Classical world recognized an inextricable link between love and death, a bond mythologized in encounters—both competitive and collaborative—between the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, and Persephone, the Queen of the Dead. When these goddesses compete, the result is tragedy. But when they collaborate—as in the initiatory tale of Eros and Psyche—they usher in apotheosis, immortality, and eternal union. In this story, Persephone gifts Aphrodite a dark cosmetic that enhances her beauty.
This lecture explores the meaning of this mysterious beauty aid, tracing it back to the mytho-philosophy of beauty in the Classical world and the symbolism of the pentagram, then tracing it inward to the beauty conferred by death in lived experience.
Mythologist Maryam Sayyad examines what Persephone’s gift reveals about the hidden value of death—and the possibility that this much-maligned force holds something unbearably sacred at its core.
Maryam Sayyad is an independent scholar and noetic artist driven by a lifelong quest for truth. With a PhD in mythological studies, a philosophical mindset, a visual and theater arts background, and an evergreen urge to distill meaning from myths, she can be found writing, translating, speaking, teaching, and creating noetic events. She is an event director for arts and education organizations, and a Contributing Artist at the Philosophical Research Society where she also serves on the Board of Directors. In 2025, she is translating a book on The Thousand and One Nights, staging a multimedia mythological musical titled Twilight of the Empress, and curating the "Mythos of Iran Conference, 2" in Los Angeles.