The classicist Dr Steve Kershaw traces Aphrodite through Greek art in a free V&A Academy taster lecture on Friday 11 September 2026. Fully booked, with walk-up places on the day.
The V&A was founded in 1852 out of the profits of the Great Exhibition, on the principle that the applied arts should be studied and not merely admired, and it has taught as well as displayed ever since. The V&A Academy is where that survives in its most direct form: courses and lectures given by specialists inside the museum, using the collection as the primary text. The taster lectures are the free hour it offers to anyone who wants to see whether the subject holds them.
Aphrodite is a good test of the method, because the question is not mythological but art-historical. How was the goddess of love actually rendered across the ancient Greek world, in sculpture, on pottery, in poetry, and how did those renderings settle into what the West has meant by beauty ever since? A museum that holds the objects can answer that differently from a lecture hall that holds only slides.
Dr Steve Kershaw gives the lecture in the Hochhauser Auditorium on Friday 11 September 2026, from six until seven. He takes his title from the Homeric Hymn’s golden Aphrodite, who stirs up sweet passion in the gods and subdues the tribes of mortal men. It is free and fully booked, and any walk-up places are allocated on the door, first come. The Academy publishes its course list a term ahead.