Imperial Projections
Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture
Sandra R Joshel editor Margaret Malamud editor Donald T McGuire editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Johns Hopkins University Press
Published:1st Nov '05
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book makes an important contribution to popular culture and classics at the same time. It seems to me that this is cultural studies at its best, most informative, and most original. This is a very serious, yet entertaining and provocative book. -- Peter Bondanella, Indiana University
, Martin M. Winkler, and Maria WykeThe phenomenal success of the recent film Gladiator ensures that ancient Rome will continue to inspire moviemakers and attract audiences as it has done since the dawn of cinema. Indeed, the creators of popular culture have so often appropriated elements of Roman history and society for films and television programs, novels and comic books, advertising and computer games that most people's knowledge of ancient Rome derives from these representations. In Imperial Projections, scholars from a variety of fields-classics, history, film studies, and gender theory-provide an interdisciplinary look at how ancient Rome has been depicted in the media and what these varied portrayals tell us about contemporary culture. The essays in Imperial Projections examine such films as Spartacus, Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, and The Fall of the Roman Empire; the acclaimed BBC television series I, Claudius; the Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; and the Roman-themed Las Vegas casino Caesars Palace, combining ancient history and cutting-edge cultural studies in a challenging, engaging, and informative volume.
An excellent collection of essays... Among the best are Nicholas J. Cull's exploration of Carry On Cleo and its brilliant send up of the epic Cleopatra... and Margaret Malamud's careful look at the Broadway and cinema version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum... The outstanding contribution to Imperial Projections is, however, Sandra Joshel's essay on I, Claudius. -- Mary Beard Times Literary Supplement This volume aids and abets a reader's own meditation on the empires of Britain, America, and Hollywood, and the ways in which the Roman empire has been an abiding vehicle for simultaneously manifesting, indulging, interrogating, and critiquing the ambitions of these more recent empires. -- Rebecca Resinski Key Reporter Imperial Projections is a terrific book. It successfully merges modern cultural critique with sound classical scholarship, and does so in a manner that is enjoyable to read and intellectually challenging. -- Kirk Ormand Bryn Mawr Classical Review An insightful exploration into how Imperial Rome, in its various popular guises, has provided a malleable and commercially viable mythos that has found special receptivity in modern America. -- Amy Henderson History: Reviews of New Books This engaging volume capitalizes on contemporary interest in the decadence and excess that characterizes Rome in the modern, as indeed in the ancient, imagination... Read it and enjoy! -- A. M. Keith New England Classical Journal 2003 An excellent example of what might be called the allegorical mode of cinematic interpretation, in which movies are understood as texts about the cultures that make and consume them. Scope: Online Journal of Film Studies Imperial Projections provides some intriguing new perspectives on such pop culture representations of Rome and the Romans. -- Catherine Colegrove Classical Outlook 2004
ISBN: 9780801882685
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm
Weight: 499g
312 pages