Doniger O'flaherty on Doniger

Abstract

In this chapter, the author reflects on the review she made for her own book, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India, using under the name Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty. Published in 1999, the book explores several clusters of myths, from ancient Greece and from ancient India, in which men or women were beheaded, doubled, split in half, or reversed in gender. It also compares the myths of the shadow Sitai and the shadow Helen of Troy, the seductions of Ahalya and Alcmena, and the gender-shifting of Ila and Teiresias. The book review appeared in the Fall 1999 issue of the Chicago South Asia Newsletter.