In connection with Sophus Helle’s book on Enheduana—which this website was created to accompany—he did a series of interviews, including three video chats (with Digital Hammurabi, Yale Babylonian Collection, and Yale University Press), a podcast, and a blog.
Tag Archives: Enheduana
Collected works in English translation
Sophus Helle’s new book on Enheduana was published with Yale University Press in March 2023. It contains an English translation of her collected works and an introduction to her historical background, literary reception, and the main themes of her poems. This website, enheduana.org, was launched to accompany the book.
January 27, 2023: Performance of The Exaltation
Clarice Jensen’s piece The Exaltation of Inanna, which recasts the poem in musical form scored for string quartet, electric guitar, electronics, and voice, with the text sung in Sumerian, will premiere at an event hosted by the Morgan Library exhibit. It will be performed by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Coverage of the exhibition
The Morgan Library exhibition attracted much exciting news coverage, including on the front page of the BBC website as well as in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Hyperallergic, Artnews, and more. At around the same time, Enheduana appeared on Kate Mosse’s list of forgotten women for The Guardian.
October 15, 2022–February 19, 2023: Exhibition at The Morgan (New York)
From October 15, 2022 through February 19, 2023, The Morgan Library & Museum in New York is hosting an exhibition about Enheduana’s life and literature, and more broadly about the world of women in ancient Iraq during the third millennium BCE. Find more information at The Morgan’s website, where you can also access a virtualContinue reading “October 15, 2022–February 19, 2023: Exhibition at The Morgan (New York)”
September 10–11, 2022: Performance at Thorvaldsens Museum (Denmark)
Three artists—Danica Curcic, Samina Bazai, and Stine Grøn—are staging an experimental musical performance of the Exaltation of Inana, based on the Danish translation by Sophus Helle, at the Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The performance, which is organized in connection with the Golden Days festival, will take place on September 10–11, 2022.
Feature story on modern reception
Lee Lawrance writes about Enheduana and her poetry for AramcoWorld, featuring interviews with Gina Konstantopoulos, Haider Almamori, Meagan Blyth, and more. Lawrence brings out the true wealth of responses to Enheduana’s poems that have appeared in recent years.
Enheduana 