Classics in the Modern World: A Democratic Turn?(Classical Presences)

Classics in the Modern World brings together a collection of distinguished international contributors to discuss the features and implications of a 'democratic turn' in modern perceptions of ancient Greece and Rome. It examines how Greek and Roman material has been involved with issues of democracy, both in political culture and in the greater diffusion of classics in recent times outside the elite classes. By looking at individual case studies from theatre, film, fiction, TV, radio, museums, and popular media, and through area studies that consider trends over time in particular societies, the volume explores the relationship between Greek and Roman ways of thinking and modern definitions of democratic practices and approaches, enabling a wider re-evaluation of the role of ancient Greece and Rome in the modern world.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of contributors List of illustrations IntroductionLorna Hardwick and Stephen Harrison: Section 1: Controversies and debates 1: Katherine Harloe: Questioning the democratic, and democratic questioning 2: Lorna Hardwick: Against the Democratic Turn: Counter-texts; Counter-contexts; Counter- arguments 3: Aleka Lianeri: Conflicts of democracy and citizenship: Between the Greek and the Roman Political Legacies 4: John Hilton: The Reception of the Roman-Dutch Law of Treason in South Africa 5: Michael Simpson: Labour and the Classics: Plato and Crossman in Dialogue Section 2: Area Study The United States 6: Barbara Lawatsch Melton: Appropriations of Cicero and Cato in the Making of American Civic Identity 7: Margaret Malamud: The Weapon of Oratory 8: Robert Davis: Civilization versus Savagery at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition 9: Nancy S. Rabinowitz: Expansion of Tragedy as Critique 10: Judith P. Hallett: Investigating American women's engagements with Greco-Roman antiquity, and expanding the circle of 'classicists' Section 3: Education: Ideologies, Practices and Contexts 11: Joanna Paul: The Democratic Turn in (and through) pedagogy: a case study of the Cambridge Latin Course 12: Barbara Goff: Classics in African Education : the rhetoric of colonial commissions 13: Martina Treu: Back to the demos. An 'anti-classical' approach to Classics Section 4: Greek Drama in Modern Performance: Democracy, Culture and Tradition 14: Mary-Kay Gamel: Can 'Democratic' Stagings of Modern Greek Drama be Authentic? 15: Anastasia Bakogianni: The triumph of demotike: the triumph of Medea 16: Angeliki Varakis: Aristophanes in Performance as an all-inclusive event': audience participation and celebration in the modern staging of Aristophanic comedy 17: Nurit Yaari: Constructing Bridges for Peace and Tolerance: Ancient Greek Drama on the Israeli Stage 18: Dorinda Hulton: The Silence of Eurydice: case study for a 'topology of democracy' Section 5: Creativity female agency in fiction on poetry 19: Fiona Cox: Ovidian Metamorphoses in the Fiction of A. S. Byatt 20: Elena Theodorakopoulos: Catullus and Lesbia translated in women's historical novels 21: Fiona Cox and Elena Theodorakopoulos: Female Voices: the democratic turn in Ali Smith's classical reception Section 6: The Public Imagination 22: Sarah Butler: Heroes or Villains: The Gracchi, Reform and the Nineteenth-Century Press 23: Alexandre G. Mitchell: Democracy and popular media: classical receptions in 19th and 20th century political cartoons: statesmen, mythological figures and celebrated artworks 24: Amanda Wrigley: Practising classical reception studies 'in the round': mass media engagements with antiquity and the 'democratic turn' towards the audience 25: Antony Makrinos: In search of ancient myths: documentaries and the quest for the Homeric World 26: George A. Kovacs: Truth, Justice, and the Spartan Way : Affectations of Democracy in Frank Miller's 300 27: Susan Walker: A 'Democratic Turn' at the Ashmolean Museum 28: Elton Barker: All Mod Cons: Power, Openness and Text in a Digital Turn 29: S.Sara Monoson: Afterword Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Lorna Hardwick is Emeritus Professor of Classical Studies at the Open University. She has published books and articles on Greek drama and on Greek and Latin poetry and historiography and its reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is editor of the Classical Receptions Journal and co-series editor of the Classical Presences series (OUP). Stephen Harrison is Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Professor of Latin Literature in the University of Oxford. He is author of books on Vergil, Horace, and Apuleius and of a range of pieces on classical reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Review :
A short review can hardly do justice to the efforts to build bridges between our discipline and the concerns of modern society relevant to the life of the students whom most of us teach ... One hopes that this volume is only a start of the larger diversification of the classical tradition and reception and that the future collections of such kind will broaden its geographic scope and include more countries beyond Western Europe and its most notable influences.