March Events For Myth Lovers
Virtual Events
On March 1, listen to a discussion about the Roman fort at Vindolanda, a site near Hadrian’s Wall in a remote countryside in Northumberland, England. Learn what recent excavations such as Roman shoes, numerous inscriptions and artifacts, as well as the unparalleled corpus of writing tablets (letters and military records), have shown us about Roman life.
On March 1, join an open discussion of the comic strip Little Lulu by Marjorie Henderson Buell.
On March 2, V.E. Schwab will discuss her latest novel Gallant, about a girl who receives an invitation to a crumbling manor where nobody is expecting her. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, she finds herself in a place that is the manor, but also isn’t — helping her see what has unraveled generations of her family.
On Wednesday March 2, you can participate in a discussion of the Trickster/Shapeshifter, which is part of an online series of six weekly presentations that focus on the narrative archetypes described by mythologist Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
On March 4, learn about connections between astrology and mythology.
On March 5, learn about Sobekneferu, Egypt’s first female king and first royal woman for whom there is evidence of cross dressing. The gender incongruent imagery associated with Egyptian creator deities established a foundation for her composite imagery, and she embraced masculine poses in her statues as well as masculine titles and grammatical endings in her inscriptions.
On March 5, learn about the Angkorian world, from its temples to its ceramics, as well as how cosmology and statecraft created Southeast Asia’s greatest premodern empire and the world’s largest preindustrial city.
On March 9, you can attend a conversation on Black women’s participation in Afrofuturism through literature, film, art, fashion, and community organizing. Panelists include award-winning writers Sheree Renée Thomas, the author of Nine Bar Blues who is also the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Andrea Hairston (Master of Poisons), Tananarive Due (The Between), and Tanaya Denise Fields (founder of Black Feminist Project & Black Joy Farm, and author of "Dirty Business: The Messy Affair of Rejecting Shame" in the book You Are Your Best Thing).
On Tuesday March 15, Sarah Ruhle, who wrote the famous play about Orpheus from his lover’s point of view, will have 20 people at a home in Manhattan to talk about her new memoir Smile: The Story Of A Face. She will also livestream the event.
On March 17, learn about the magical creatures of the woodlands, from fairies dancing along the riverbanks to goblins sitting around the fire to bridge trolls to leprechauns.
On March 24, watch an online panel featuring activist and artivists Ziggy, Dacia Polk, Schetaunna Powell, Zaika Dos Santos, and Queen Kukuyu, and moderated by LaWana Richmond.
On March 31, learn about the drinking game of kottabos, in which the ancient Greeks flung wine sediment at a target which in some cases might be a phallus-headed bird. The thrower toasts to a person of affection, and the outcome of the throw was thought to determine the the possibility of success in love.
Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss is in the public domain.
New York City Events
On Tuesday nights from March 1--May 10, attend a discussion of work by Audre Lorde such as the biomythography Zami, A New Spelling of My New Name or Sister Outsider.
On March 4, take a private tour of women warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection, including portrayals of the Amazons, Joan of Arc and more.
On March 4, listen to a discussion at the National Arts Club about the Flamenbaum gold tablet, its beauty and provenance, as well as the significance of court rulings in determining ownership of this highly contested masterpiece from the past, itself a victim to warfare.
From March 4-March 19, you can participate in the New York International Children’s Film Festival. The program includes a film in which Anne Frank materializes in the near future as a fully-fledged girl, a film about a girl who poofs into a giant red panda, and abandoned washing machine that lets you swap heads with someone else, and more.
On March 15, Alex Segura will give a talk at The Strand about his novel Secret Identity, in which a comic book writer gets enlisted to write a new female superhero character, as people begin to die around her. Crime fiction author Kelly Garrett will also talk about her novel Like A Sister, which is about a black reality TV star found dead in the Bronx.
From March 15-20, you can watch Book of Mountains & Seas, in which 12 singers from The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, two percussionists and a team of puppeteers will perform a modern adaptation of Chinese myths transcribed in the 4th century B.C.
From March 16-25, you can participate in Asia Week New York, which will consist of exhibitions, special events, and auctions of Asian art.
On March 16 at The Strand Bookstore, Delilah Dawson will talk about her book the Violence, whose protagonist struggles to survive an epidemic in which the infected experience animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. Kevin Hearne will talk about the Iron Druid Chronicles, in which a two-thousand-year-old Druid is pursued by ancient gods in the modern world. Chuck Wendig will talk about his literary horror The Book of Accidents.
Anytime until April 18, you can see the Greater New York exhibit at PS1, which explores narratives around artists in New York, including how they record their experiences of belonging and estrangement though everything from documentary to surrealism.
Through March 6, the Met has a special exhibition about Disney. Sixty works of 18th-century European decorative arts and design—from tapestries and furniture to Boulle clocks and Sèvres porcelain—will be featured alongside 150 production artworks and works on paper from Disney. The exhibit references European visual culture in Disney animated films, including nods to Gothic Revival architecture in Cinderella (1950), medieval influences on Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Rococo-inspired objects brought to life in Beauty and the Beast (1991).
Any day you want you can go to Beetle House, a restaurant that takes inspiration from Tim Burton, Alfred Hitchcock, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe and many more. The menu includes, Blood Bags, Hautned Lemonade, Bio-Exorcism’s, among other things. Dining in only, which adds a new COVID element to the scare show.
Check out the dragons, kings, pirate ships, Merlin’s flying machines and other spectacles at the new Legoland in Goshen, New York.
Get Butter Beer at the new Harry Potter-themed store and bar at 935 Broadway near the Flatiron Building.
Miss going to the movies? Watch a socially distanced one outside with your friends at Sidewalk Cinema on Thames Street in Brooklyn.
Check out the images of buddhas, bodhisattvas, tantric deities, protectors and more at the Rubin Museum’s Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room.
U.S. Events
"Myth.Slide1.16" by c.a.francese is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
From March 16-20, you can attend the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, where academics will meet in Florida to discuss the study of fantasy.
From March 25-27, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Science, Comics, Horror, Education, Costuming, Anime, and Gaming fans will congregate in Memphis for MidSouthCon. Programming includes a judged costume contest, a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, autograph signings, and more.
World Events
From March 19-20, around 10,000 anime / manga, comics, marvel movies, fantasy, sci-fi, and TV series fans will congregate in Budapest for MondoCon. Programming ranges from cosplay to karaoke.
Recurring Virtual Events
Every year in the secret realm of Bunnyville, magical creatures from around the world gather for their annual summit. This is supposed to be a time to reconnect with old and new friends, but this year someone (or some creature!) has stolen the Easter Bunny’s magical golden egg! Kids and adults can both enjoy this enchanted game featuring creatures like fairies, dragons, mermaids, and of course the Easter Bunny!
If you would rather be in France right now, view a selection of thematically-themed works from the Louvre online, including the ones in the Sully Wing, which includes major works of Greek and Egyptian art such as the Venus de Milo.
Take an online course with Stanford research scholar Adrienne Mayor in which you will “uncover the natural origins of stories about dragons. . .; ponder whether the Amazon horsewomen-archers of myth existed; consider the dilemmas of using poison weapons in myth and ancient historical times; and marvel at robots and other science fiction tales from the time of Homer.” $120.
Take an online mini-course about Rome, seeing how it exists not only in brick and mortar, but also in the realm of ideas, and through the eyes of locals and visitors. Topics will include Rome’s urban and architectural development, as well as its representation in maps and artworks from across the city’s exceptionally long lifetime. $99.
The NY Mythology Group, which is associated with the Joseph Campbell Foundation, holds presentations and discussions about mythology related topics ranging from the Greek goddess Hecate to Carl Jung. Their events usually take place on Tuesday evenings at 8 pm EDT, and have been online since the pandemic started.
BSFW, or Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, meetings take place mostly online currently, but pre-pandemic were in the homes of writers mostly in Brooklyn but also on occasion Manhattan or Queens. Check out their calendar on meetup to attend their numerous writing workshops, social gatherings, meetings with editors/agents/authors, book clubs, and more. The group includes many published writers and has its own audio fiction magazine, Kaleidocast. If you post about your fetish for Olympian gods on their Facebook group feed, they (probably) won’t judge.
EREWHON BOOKS, a publisher focusing on novel-length works of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, and related genres, holds readings usually on the second Thursday each month virtually for now and in a pre-apocalypse world at its high ceilinged office of many windows in Manhattan.
Fantastic Fiction at KGB is a monthly speculative-fiction reading series held on the third Wednesday of every month virtually for now, and in a pre-apocalypse world at KGB Bar in Manhattan. Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel host the event. As one might expect from a communism-themed bar, admission is free.
The NYC Greek Myth & Classical Lit Meetup meets every third Thursday of the month at the Cloister Cafe in the East Village to discuss the work of mostly long dead authors (e.g. Aristophanes, Dante.) The group has existed for more than a decade, so the long-term participants have already earned their unofficial classics PhD’s, and we already know that anybody who would do this for fun is as hip as a person can get.
Marcantonio Raimondi’s “A Bacchanal”. CC01.0 Public domain.
