Description
Book SynopsisIn Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture, Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice offer a comprehensive collection of chapters dealing with the reception of antiquity in popular media of the modern era (19th-21st centuries). These media include theatrical plays, cinematic representations, Television drama, popular newspapers or journals, poems and outdoor festivals. For the first time in Classical Reception Studies, ancient Jewish literature and imagery are included in the discussion. The focus of the volume is both the continuity and variance between ancient and modern sets of values, which appear in the new interpretations of the ancient stories, figures and protagonists.
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction: Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice Part 1: Re-enacting Ancient Virtues and Vices Section 1: Staging Ancient Virtues and VicesThe House of Atreus as a Reflection of Contemporary Evil: Performance Reception and The Oresteia Lisa Maurice 2 Thornton Wilder’s The Alcestiad or A Life in the Sun Hanna Roisman 3 Herodotus on Stage: The Modern Greek Play “Candaules’ Wife” by Margarita Liberaki Ariadne Konstantinou Section 2: Screening Ancient Virtues and Vices 4 Can You Dig It? Heroes and Villains from Xenophon’s Anabasis to Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979) Eran Almagor 5 Hercules’ Choice: Virtue, Vice and the Hero of the Twentieth-century Screen Emma Stafford 6 Deconstructing Oedipus: Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite and the Classical Tradition Anna Foka 7 Caligula and Drusilla in the Modern Imagination Emma Southon 8 “Salome, Nice Girl”: Rita Hayworth and the Problem of the Hollywood Biblical Vamp Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones 9 Representations of the Christian Female Virtue in Roman Film Epics: The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Quo Vadis (1951) Panayiota Mini Part 2: Ancient Virtues and Vices in the Modern World Section 2: Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Greece 10 Philip, Alexander and Macedonia: Between Greek Virtue and Barbarian Pleasure Maria Pretzler 11 From Giscard d’Estaing to Syntagma Square: The Use and Abuse of Ancient Greece in the Debate on Greece’s eu membership Luca Asmonti 12 The Great God Pan Never Dies! Aggeliki Koumanoudi Section 2: Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Jewish Existence 13 In These Days, in That Season: The Nationalization of the Maccabees David M. Schaps 14 A Double Edged Sword—The Power of Bar-Kosibah: From Rabbinic Literature to Popular Culture Haim Weiss 15 What Has Rome to Do with Jerusalem? The Reception of Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akivah in the Talmud and in Contemporary Israel Gabriel Danzig Bibliography Index
