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Translator and cultural historian Sarah Ruden is best known for her translations of classic Greek and Roman texts. Through that work, she traced the origins of the most harmful ideas about women — ideas that still plague half of the population today.

Drawing from texts as old as 50 A.D., Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women identifies seven pieces of literature that mark historical inflection points, exposing how oppressive ideologies took hold.

Ruden discusses damaging ideas about reproductive freedom, when and where doctrines of control were invented and disseminated, and the evolution of right-wing radicalism still threatening human rights.

Her work references texts, including the New Testament’s Pastoral Epistles, The Hammer of Witches from the late fifteenth century, and Charles Dickens’ The Chimes, which glorified large families among the very poor.

Ruden is a visiting scholar at Brown University, has won Guggenheim, Whiting, and Silvers grants, and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. She’s translated the works of St. Augustine, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer, Virgil, the writing of the Apostle Paul, and more.