Ovid's Metamorphoses casts long shadow of influence over the literature and culture of Europe and the Americas. While many important studies have traced the continuity of Ovid's mythographic influence across historical periods (Winkler, 2017; Miller and Newlands, 2014; Knox, 2009; Ziolkowski, 2005; Annes Brown, 2005; Hardie, 2002; Martindale, 1988) , this panel seeks to bring Ovid's reception into a 21st century context by exploring how the notion of metamorphosis can be productively applied to consider contemporary challenges of identity. Ovid's tales of metamorphoses disrupt conventional binaries marking distinctions between human and natural life, between male and female, between copy and original. The transformed identities that emerge in Ovid's tales often evince a hybrid quality: Tiresias, though inhabiting a male body, has knowledge of female experience. The arboreally transformed Daphnae continues to shrink from Apollo's embrace, even while a non-sentient plant, and Orpheus's music stirs the trees to uproot themselves to follow him. The unexpected coexistence of human and nonhuman attributes in these transformed figures challenges our assumptions about personhood. At times, the hybrid form prompts the recognition of hidden continuities linking distinct identities or forms of life; in other cases, the metamorphosis highlights the importance of maintaining distinction and difference.

Further, Ovid's tales often reflect upon the ways that hubristic ingenuity or desired illusion can ensnare or sabotage the self. In the Narcissus myth, the youth's obsession with his own reflection suggestively illustrates the technological self-preoccupations that are symptomatic of consumerist multi-media, as noted by Marshall McLuhan (1964), and Martin Winkler (2017). Likewise, the Pygmalion myth, as a narrative about projected desire and moving images, also presents a productive narrative for thinking about our cultural fascination with interactive technologies that either adapt to user preferences or simulate lived experiences (Stoichita, 2008). To what extent do the various images reflected and mediated through proliferating kinds of screens work to enchant the self in a state of passivity? Do responsive technologies merely pander to our desires and biases, encasing the user in a Narcissistic echo chamber? Or do interactive technologies enhance the quality of human life by supporting more opportunities for dialogue and encounters with others?

Vera Klekovkina's paper, "21st Century Pygmalions and Galateas: Emotional Passivity and the Future of Human-Robot Interaction," examines the Pygmalion myth as a sexist consumerist fantasy that fuels cinematic representations of fembots in the movies Her (2013) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). She identifies Pygmalion's desire for the statue as a form of psychological projection, which, in the Ovidian tale, fulfills the masculine fantasy when the woman figure awakens and ventriloquizes her admirer's devotion. In contrast, the rapport between human lover and female artifact is more vexed in the 21st century cinematic narratives, since the disenchanted male protagonists are rendered unexpectedly passive by their projected desires for the humanoid form. By analyzing the emotional passivity of the modern-day Pygmalions in contrast with the humanoid’s agency, Prof. Klekovkina raises ethical questions about the rights of sentient machines to expect humane treatment from humans, whose own humanity is weakened by their passivity before the artificial life form.

Steven Shoemaker’s paper, "Metamorphosis and the Limits of the Human in Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2 and The Overstory," juxtaposes two Ovidian-inspired novels by Richard Powers, each of which represents a thought experiment about the transformations of human and non-human identities. Powers's 1995 novel, Galatea 2.2, explicitly draws upon the Pygmalion myth as a framework for conceptualizing the rapport between human and artificial intelligence. Like Prof. Klekovkina's paper, Shoemaker's analysis reveals that the human protagonist's engagement with the humanoid form incapacitates him, and it is only after the Galatea figure rejects the protagonist by shutting herself down that the latter reclaims his desire to engage the creative work of writing fiction. While Galatea 2.2 considers the interaction between human and artificial intelligence, The Overstory(2018) repositions the comparison to reflect upon the interdependence of human and arboreal life forms. The Overstory traces the movements of a group of characters who converge as eco-activists with the shared commitment to preserving forest life. Powers asks ecological and ethical questions about the rights of trees, about their organic capacity to interact and form community with other plant life, and about their capacity to awaken transformative flourishing within the human spirit. Powers becomes a kind of Orpheus poet, whose narrative seeks to awaken reader's attentive perception of the natural world. While Galatea 2.2 might be read as a cautionary narrative about technological preoccupations, the novel The Overstory invites its reader to reflect upon the vast mystery hidden within forest life.

Maude Hines's paper, “Trading Places: Tiresias as Twentieth-Century Reporter,” uses the figure of Tiresias to interpret twentieth-century narratives about transformations in racial identity. In Metamorphoses 3, Jupiter appeals to Tiresias to resolve his argument with Juno about whether men or women experience more pleasure in love. Tiresias's testimony is respected ostensibly because of his transsexual experience as an embodied woman, but in fact, because Jupiter identifies with the prophet's masculine authority. Three mid-twentieth century texts in different genres (Elia Kazan’s 1947 film Gentleman’s Agreement, John Howard Griffin’s 1961 Black Like Me; and DC Comics’ 1970 Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane Issue #106: “I Am Curious (Black)!”) echo this trope of authoritative witness through the figure of the W.A.S.P. reporter who "experiences" another cultural or racial identity. The white reporter’s purported objectivity is trusted ultimately because they belong to the dominant group. Prof. Hines will then extend the implications of these 20th century narratives into the present moment, discussing not only the emergence of the #ownvoices hashtag, highlighting the continued struggle for the authentic representation, but also the controversy surrounding Rachel Dolezal's "transracial" identity.

For Prof. Klekovkina and Prof. Shoemaker, the trope of metamorphosis enables the reader to detect continuities among different kinds of life forms. Prof. Hines's paper interprets metamorphosis as a metaphor for cultural appropriation and thereby highlights the importance of respecting and attending to difference.