Women Who Bite: Chastity Belts, Castration Anxiety and Feminism: An  Illustrated Live Zoom Lecture by Master Jeweler and Art Historian Karen Bachmann
Date: Wednesday, April 29th
Time: 7 pm EDT
Admission: $8 - Tickets HERE.
This lecture will take place virtually, via Zoom. A link will be provided the day of the lecture. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with the speaker, and ask questions.
PLEASE NOTE: This lecture will be recorded and available for free for Patreon members at $5 a month and above. Become a member HERE.

Humankinds earliest cultures were matriarchal in nature. The advent of agrarian civilization witnessed women’s power gradually devalued by a growing patriarchy. Both Western and Eastern cultures have folklore and art history attesting to the leitmotif of the strong, fierce woman rising against oppressive authority. Tonight’s lecture will explore the myths, fables, and visual representations of the ferocious, toothed woman. Such imagery includes: chastity belts (and their development), male castration anxiety, vengeful goddesses, Amazon warriors, and vagina dentata. These subjects will be explored in all their frightening, savage, and often humorous incarnations.

Karen Bachmann specializes in jewelry, hollowware, and decorative art. She has special interests in medieval, memento mori , Renaissance, Baroque, and 19th century hairwork.  She has been collecting Victorian hairwork jewelry and wall pieces for many years and is often called upon to loan her pieces to museums and lecture on the subject. Her studio work revolves around modern iterations of the genre of hairwork, incorporated into jewelry, wearable art, and decorative objects. She is a practicing studio jeweler with over 25 years of experience creating fine jewelry  and is a former master jeweler at Tiffany & Co. She has exhibited her work extensively which can be found in international private and public collections. At Pratt, she teaches in both the Art History and Fine Art departments. She is also an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Karen is a former artist and scholar in residence at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn. Her work has been published in Art Jewelry today and the Lark 500 series of books. Published works include “Hairy Secrets: Human Relic as Memory Object in Victorian Hairwork Jewelry” and “Queen of the Stone Age: the Venus of Willendorf”. Her most recent publication is an essay on hairwork in Death: A Graveside Companion, by Thames & Hudson.

Image: Silver-bound hinged cowrie shell containing a miniature painting of a man unlocking the chastity belt of a reclining woman, via Wellcome Images