Gregory Daugherty, chair of the Classics department at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, will present the annual Fox Classics Lecture at Monmouth College on Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Highlander Room of Stockdale Center.

Entitled “Her Infinite Variety: Cleopatra in Twentieth Century American Popular Culture,” Daugherty’s illustrated lecture will examine the current image of Cleopatra by looking at the ways she has been used in fiction, film, music, comics and advertising.

“Through the ages, Cleopatra’s image has undergone many changes reflecting the interests and anxieties of different cultures,” says Daugherty. “For the Romans, she was the archetypal ‘other’; for the Middle Ages, she was the wanton woman; in the Renaissance, she became the ‘tragick queene.’ In modern America, she continues to be all of these with the added roles of pulp fiction vamp, Egyptomaniacal beauty and afrocentrist heroine.”

The event is free and open to the public.

The Fox Classics Lecture is named in honor of Bernice L. Fox, emerita professor of classics, who taught Greek, Latin and English at Monmouth College from 1947-1981. In 1956, she founded Monmouth’s Gamma Omicron Chapter of Eta Sigma Phi, the national classics honor society. She has also published several translations of contemporary works into Greek and Latin, including writing by Maupassant, O. Henry and E.B. White. To honor her work, accomplishments and commitment to Monmouth College, the annual lecture series was established in her name in 1985. She was awarded an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters by Monmouth College in 1991.