thersites. Journal for Transcultural Presences & Diachronic Identities from Antiquity to Date
type: channel
description: thersites is an international open access journal for innovative transdisciplinary classical studies edited by Annemarie Ambühl, Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Christian Rollinger and Christine Walde. thersites expands classical reception studies by publishing original scholarship free of charge and by reflecting on Greco-Roman antiquity as present phenomenon and diachronic culture that is part of today’s transcultural and highly diverse world. Antiquity, in our understanding, does not merely belong to the past, but is always experienced and engaged in the present. thersites contributes to the critical review on methods, theories, approaches and subjects in classical scholarship, which currently seems to be awkwardly divided between traditional perspectives and cultural turns. thersites brings together scholars, writers, essayists, artists and all kinds of agents in the culture industry to get a better understanding of how antiquity constitutes a part of today’s culture and (trans-)forms our present. Follow us on facebook and twitter! ___________________________________________________ thersites ISSN 2364-7612
language: en
publication name: thersites. Journal for Transcultural Presences & Diachronic Identities from Antiquity to Date
issn: 2364-7612
copyright: Authors who publish with thersites agree to the following terms: Publishing in thersites is free of any charges. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, so long as the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. The journal is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. More information about this license is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
items: Introduction
items: “Imagines 8. Pagan Pornotopias? The Reception of Antiquity in Eroticism and Pornography”
items: Solving Problems through Katasterismos: Classical Reception in New Zealand author Sabrina Malcolm’s Zeustian Logic
items: “Where normal people see Romans and Gauls, you see Ustashe and Partisans”
items: Going Home Again to Troy and Ithaca
items: Women philosophers and enslaved robots: automation fantasies and consent in Jo Walton’s The Just City
items: Madeline Miller and the Midcult
items: You can’t keep the woman in the wallpaper
items: ‘Fanfiction’ and the Canon in Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den Trilogy
items: Review of Samantha Masters, Imkhitha Nzungu & Grant Parker: (u)Mzantsi Classics. Dialogues in Decolonisation from Southern Africa
items: Review of Katherine Lu Hsu, David Schur, Brian P. Sowers (eds.): The Body Unbound. Literary Approaches to the Classical Corpus
items: Pat Barker’s Achilles: Excess of Manliness and Hegemonic Masculinity toward Self-Destruction
items: Teodora: Un’odierna lettura romanzata in Italia
items: Le roi d’Hélène de Christos Choménidis : l’histoire d’Hélène racontée par Ménélas
items: The Lore of It All: A Female Twist on the Homeric Hero
items: Cassandra in a Time of War: A Reading of Marcial Gala’s Llámenme Casandra and Igiaba Scego’s Cassandra a Mogadiscio
items: Ovid zwischen Biographie und Roman
items: Ovid at Cair Paravel: Periodization and the Ages of Man in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia
items: ‘The Wide Canvas of Human Drama’
items: Snatched from Spring
items: Un-silencing the Girls: Critical Classical Reception in Feminist Retellings of Greek Myths
items: The Golden Ass
items: Alexander the Great Scouser
items: Rezension von Suzanne Collins: Die Tribute von Panem auf Lateinisch. De sortibus Pani tributis
items: Divine Ontology and Multicultural Representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
items: „Es wehte homerische Luft“
items: Review of Hamish Williams: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics
items: Greek Antiquity in Lockdown
items: Vorsicht vor Spartacus?
items: Rezension von Victoria Austen: Analysing the Boundaries of the Ancient Roman Garden. (Re)Framing the Hortus

Introduction
type: item
subject: Prolegomena
  topic: section
creator: Matthias Heinemann
creator: Adrian Weiß
creator: Christine Walde
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Matthias Heinemann; Adrian Weiß, Christine Walde https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 1
ending page: 7
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.303

“Imagines 8. Pagan Pornotopias? The Reception of Antiquity in Eroticism and Pornography”
type: item
description: “Imagines 8. Pagan Pornotopias? The Reception of Antiquity in Eroticism and Pornography” was the eighth conference organised by Imagines Project. It took place 27th, 28th and 29th September 2023 at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and its conference programme covered a total of 18 papers grouped into five panels. These contributions were focused, as referred to by the event’s title, on the reception of the ancient world —especially Greece and Rome— in erotic and pornographic products ranging from the 19th century to today. With this topic at the core, and working with concepts such as “pornotopias” in Western popular culture, ancient Greece’s role in the shaping and legitimisation of homosexuality, or the characterisation of ancient Rome as inherently opposed to Christianity in erotic moral terms, the workshop’s aim was to explore the degree in which Antiquity and its conscious, unconscious, direct or indirect reception have shaped the construction of not just eroticism and pornography, but desire, attraction, sexuality, sexual orientations and identities, and performance gender.
subject: Essays
  topic: section
subject: Pornotopia
  topic: keywords
subject: eroticism
  topic: keywords
subject: pornography
  topic: keywords
subject: sexuality
  topic: keywords
subject: Imagines Project
  topic: keywords
creator: Samuel Carreño Ramos
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Samuel Carreño Ramos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-04-23
publication date: 2025-04-23
starting page: 191
ending page: 197
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol20.302

Solving Problems through Katasterismos: Classical Reception in New Zealand author Sabrina Malcolm’s Zeustian Logic
type: item
description: New Zealand writer Sabrina Malcolm’s 2017 novel Zeustian Logic is a contemporary school story about a family struggling to deal with grief. This text follows in a decades-long tradition of New Zealand YA literature employing Classical reception. The novel illustrates how Classical myth helps a contemporary New Zealand teenager (Tuttle) come to terms with his father’s death and his own feelings of helplessness, frustration and anger. This chapter examines the role of Classical reception in this novel, discussing how the author uses star mythology to underpin the depiction of the protagonist’s coming-of-age. More than that, Malcolm compares Tuttle’s feelings with ancient perceptions of anger and grief and skillfully casts Tuttle, in his quest for knowledge, as a modern-day Telemachus. The chapter concludes with a look at how Tuttle’s attitudes towards Zeus change, as he matures.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: katasterismos
  topic: keywords
subject: death
  topic: keywords
subject: grief
  topic: keywords
subject: bullying
  topic: keywords
subject: family relationships
  topic: keywords
creator: Babette Puetz
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Babette Puetz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 334
ending page: 360
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.301

“Where normal people see Romans and Gauls, you see Ustashe and Partisans”
type: item
description: The article employs critical discourse analysis to explore the portrayal of Rome and contemporary Croatian society in a novel set within the historic confines of Diocletian’s Palace in Split, Croatia. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Baudrillard and Debord, the study investigates themes of historical authenticity, cultural commodification, and societal critique. While the novel presents Rome as a multifaceted symbol embodying themes of fascination, commodification, and political resonance, its depiction often veers towards clichéd stereotypes and shallow commodification. Similarly, the critique of contemporary Croatian society, while ostensibly critical, often lacks depth, resorting to superficial caricatures. Despite its attempt to provoke introspection, the novel risks oversimplifying complex socio-political issues, offering limited substantive critique.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Rome
  topic: keywords
subject: Diocletian
  topic: keywords
subject: Split
  topic: keywords
subject: novel
  topic: keywords
subject: discourse
  topic: keywords
creator: Andelko Mihanovic
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Andelko Mihanovic https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 166
ending page: 187
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.299

Going Home Again to Troy and Ithaca
type: item
description: As the author of three novels inspired by the Homeric epics, I reflect on the challenge of writing such books. Reception novels can make familiar stories new and engaging by presenting characters in the immediacy of decisive moments and looking at familiar situations from different perspectives. I also examine the fictive as opposed to the historical location of Troy, how Troy and Ithaca became my imaginative home, and my process for writing such books. It concludes with an excerpt that illustrates the points made. The novels discussed are: Breeze (2021), We First Met in Ithaca or Was It Eden? (2023), and Let the Women Have Their Say (2024). Another book, Trojan Tales (2024), consists of excerpts from these three.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Homeric epic
  topic: keywords
subject: Homeric reception
  topic: keywords
subject: Trojan War
  topic: keywords
subject: recursion,
  topic: keywords
subject: perspective
  topic: keywords
creator: Richard Seltzer
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Richard Seltzer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 480
ending page: 517
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.257

Women philosophers and enslaved robots: automation fantasies and consent in Jo Walton’s The Just City
type: item
description: When Athena and Apollo decide to gather children and intellectuals (including a good number of women) from different eras to put into practice Plato’s proposal of an ideal politeia, everything seems to be going just fine. However, problems soon disrupt the harmony of this quest for individual and social excellence. Through the literary depiction of interactions between various historical figures and schools of thought, Jo Walton’s The Just City raises a series of questions on topics of great relevance for our own world, especially those related to debates on fairer socio-economic ways of organisation and the struggle for social justice and freedom. This paper will analyse how gender, sexuality and social hierarchies are presented in this literary realisation of Plato’s Republic as well as the way Walton imagines ancient thought would deal with modern issues such as invisible and devalued labour performed by marginalised collectives such as, in this case, women and robots.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Plato
  topic: keywords
subject: robots
  topic: keywords
subject: women, philosophers
  topic: keywords
subject: Socrates
  topic: keywords
subject: Jo Walton
  topic: keywords
subject: utopia
  topic: keywords
creator: Sonsoles Costero-Quiroga
creator: Marina Díaz Bourgeal
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Sonsoles Costero-Quiroga, Marina Díaz Bourgeal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 257
ending page: 284
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.281

Madeline Miller and the Midcult
type: item
description: Madeline Miller’s novels The Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe (2018) comprise fictional autobiographies of the figures of Patroclus and Circe, respectively, known from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Revolving around Homeric side characters and the themes of homosexuality as well as female agency in the traditionally heteronormative and patriarchal ancient world, they pose perfect examples of 21st century mythological retellings with their typical focus on characters and topics considered underrepresented. With recourse to the concept of ‘midcult’, i.e. literature that suggests high-cultural and social relevance while not living up to this claim, Miller’s novels will serve as exemplary cases demonstrating the chances and limitations of modern mythological retellings. Miller’s broad media presence will additionally allow for insights on her poetic selfconception and the role of public epitext in the process. Due to misrepresentations of the ancient tradition, untenable accusations against classical scholarship, and a rather narrow conception of homosexuality, The Song of Achilles will be revealed as midcult, whereas the variety of female topics and strong female characters, the skilful reworking of Odysseus and Circe’s encounter, and the intertextual play with Odyssean narrative techniques render Circe a successful balancing act of a modern approach to the ancient tradition.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Madeline Miller
  topic: keywords
subject: mythological retellings
  topic: keywords
subject: midcult
  topic: keywords
subject: reception of Homer
  topic: keywords
creator: Michael Julian Fischer
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Michael Julian Fischer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 94
ending page: 136
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.297

You can’t keep the woman in the wallpaper
type: item
description: This article uses new-materialist approaches to explore the dynamic and two-way interaction between the woman and the house from ancient Greek literature to the works of Ismail Kadare, Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sue Townsend and Daisy Johnson. It shows the ethical import of the New Materialisms in terms of inclusivity, shifting our focus to underrepresented agents and questioning hierarchical approaches to both materiality and the female. If women are confined to the domestic domain, their agency will interact with that of the house: whether in collaboration, or antithesis.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: New Materialism
  topic: keywords
subject: Gender
  topic: keywords
subject: Agency
  topic: keywords
subject: Inclusivity
  topic: keywords
subject: Homer
  topic: keywords
creator: Lilah Grace Canevaro
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Lilah Grace Canevaro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-04-23
publication date: 2025-04-23
starting page: 1
ending page: 29
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol20.296

‘Fanfiction’ and the Canon in Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den Trilogy
type: item
description: This article examines how the idea of ‘fanfiction’ can help scholars of the ancient world create accessible and informative ways of introducing non-expert audiences to the ancient world, and show how Harper’s The Wolf Den trilogy is a good example. Harper uses a mix of material evidence and quotations from canonical texts to recreate the lives of ordinary Romans. The immersion in the ancient world created by this combination of material and literary evidence challenges the idea that the ancient world is exactly as represented by canonical literature. For example, Amara must alter her behavior many times to fit into the expectations of the upper class man she is acting as courtesan for as well as Pliny, who rents her for a week. In addition, rather than depicting Amara meekly accepting her fate, Harper shows how she and her fellow shewolves strive to break the cycle of oppression.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Fanfiction
  topic: keywords
subject: ordinary Romans
  topic: keywords
subject: historical fiction
  topic: keywords
subject: Roman literature
  topic: keywords
subject: material culture
  topic: keywords
creator: Alicia Matz
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Alicia Matz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 215
ending page: 256
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.294

Review of Samantha Masters, Imkhitha Nzungu & Grant Parker: (u)Mzantsi Classics. Dialogues in Decolonisation from Southern Africa
type: item
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Tycho Maas
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Tycho Maas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-04-23
publication date: 2025-04-23
starting page: 240
ending page: 245
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol20.292

Review of Katherine Lu Hsu, David Schur, Brian P. Sowers (eds.): The Body Unbound. Literary Approaches to the Classical Corpus
type: item
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Markus Kersten
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Markus Kersten https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-04-23
publication date: 2025-04-23
starting page: 232
ending page: 239
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol20.291

Pat Barker’s Achilles: Excess of Manliness and Hegemonic Masculinity toward Self-Destruction
type: item
description: In this article, we analyze the figure of Achilles as Pat Barker rewrites him in The Silence of the Girls (2018). The first section intertwines the concept of hegemonic masculinity, developed by Raewyn Connell, with the two types of Homeric masculinities identified by Barbara Graziosi: proper manliness (ἠνορέη) and excess of manliness (ἀγηνορίη). By dedicating each following section to a specific character, we analyze and discuss how they are reinvented in Barker’s retelling of the Trojan War. We juxtapose Achilles as a representative of hegemonic masculinity to Patroclus as a representative of exemplary masculinity. Finally, we investigate the extent to which Briseis and Achilles undergo a process of loss of identity inasmuch as hegemonic masculinity is concerned.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Achilles
  topic: keywords
subject: Briseis
  topic: keywords
subject: Patroclus
  topic: keywords
subject: hero
  topic: keywords
subject: masculinities
  topic: keywords
creator: Tiago Cordeiro
creator: Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Tiago Cordeiro, Professor Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 47
ending page: 78
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.290

Teodora: Un’odierna lettura romanzata in Italia
type: item
description: This paper examines two Italian novels by Mariangela Galatea Vaglio, a historian, novelist, and blogger. The novels, published in 2018 and 2022, are titled Teodora. La figlia del circo and Teodora. I demoni del potere. In my analysis, I will focus on a few key aspects that are, in my opinion, essential to the novels. First, I will briefly analyze the techniques used to represent the cultural situation of the time. Secondly, the focus will be on Vaglio’s characterization of Theodora and Justinian as complementary examples of ‘nonconformist’ femininity and masculinity. In particular, I will consider the Nika revolt of 532 CE, which is presented in I demoni del potere as a crucial moment in the empress’s path. To highlight the unique aspects of Vaglio’s narrative, a comparison will be made between her depiction of Theodora’s famous speech during the revolt and Procopius’ narrative in his History of the Wars, as well as Stella Duffy’s description of the event in her novel The Purple Shroud. Finally, the author herself briefly explains the reasons for reexamining the figure of Theodora today in a short interview.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Theodora
  topic: keywords
subject: Justinian
  topic: keywords
subject: Procopius of Caesarea
  topic: keywords
subject: Galatea Vaglio
  topic: keywords
subject: Stella Duffy
  topic: keywords
creator: Diego De Brasi
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Diego De Brasi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 188
ending page: 214
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.289

Le roi d’Hélène de Christos Choménidis : l’histoire d’Hélène racontée par Ménélas
type: item
description: In April of 2020, Christos Chomenidis (Athens, 1966) published his eleventh novel, a book of over 400 pages by the title Her king. The main character is Menelaus and the starting point is Helen’s run away with Paris. Menelaus decides to tell his truth about this well-known story. In Her king all great heroes of the legend of Troy participate, but they are presented through a distorting mirror: e.g. Menelaus is the bravest son of Atreus and not Agamemnon; Leda’s story is a lie; the Dioscuri are a couple of imbeciles. My paper is mostly a review on Chomenidis’ book, where I highlight the deviations from the “official” story about the beginning of the Trojan war and find the possible ancient sources that the author chose to follow or not.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Menelaus
  topic: keywords
subject: Helen of Troy
  topic: keywords
subject: Christos Chomenidis
  topic: keywords
subject: Trojan War
  topic: keywords
creator: Orestis Karavas
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Orestis Karavas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 79
ending page: 93
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.288

The Lore of It All: A Female Twist on the Homeric Hero
type: item
description: Lore (2021) is a young-adult novel that tells the story of a young woman by the name of Lore, a descendant of the Greek hero Perseus. Once every seven years, the Greek gods are forced to wear a human form and be hunted by descendants of different Greek heroes in the deathly Agon. When a hunter kills a god, he becomes a New God and gets their powers. Traumatized Lore is forced back into the Agon to protect Athena and avenge her family’s murder. Bracken uses elements of Greek mythology and current trends from YA literature to create the heroine of her novel. Lore demonstrates characteristics similar to those of the Homeric hero while portraying her role as a 21st-century woman warrior, aka Girl on Fire. A comparison is drawn between Lore and the Homeric hero, with particular attention given to the masculine-feminine dichotomy.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Lore
  topic: keywords
subject: Girl on Fire
  topic: keywords
subject: The Homeric Hero
  topic: keywords
subject: Classical Reception
  topic: keywords
subject: Masculinity
  topic: keywords
creator: Avishay Gerczuk
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Avishay Gerczuk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 361
ending page: 379
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.286

Cassandra in a Time of War: A Reading of Marcial Gala’s Llámenme Casandra and Igiaba Scego’s Cassandra a Mogadiscio
type: item
description: This article focuses on Marcial Gala’s 2019 novel Llámenme Casandra and Igiaba Scego’s 2023 novel Cassandra a Mogadiscio demonstrating how both texts feature the mythological prophetess Cassandra in order to thematize conflict and social stigma in relation to colonial/postcolonial contexts and intersectional identities. More in general, my argument contributes to mapping the growing relevance of Cassandra in world literature and the arts as a key character for problematizing issues of social marginalization. My argument is divided into three sections. Section one provides an overview of the contemporary reception of Cassandra’s myth aimed at showing that the two traits associated with this character (prophetic voice related to wars and social marginality) are the core elements driving such reception. Sections two and three focus on Scego’s and Gala’s novels. Gala’s novel features a male soldier who identifies himself as a reincarnation of Cassandra fighting during the Cuban Intervention in Angola (1970s), while in Cassandra a Mogadiscio the author herself identifies as Cassandra in narrating her family’s experiences during the Somali Civil War (1990s) and the migration to Italy. By examining these texts through the methodological lenses provided by Classical Reception Studies, Queer Studies and Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, I demonstrate how the two novels work as key sites for the exploration of the processes behind the construction of social identities.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Classical Reception
  topic: keywords
subject: Classical Mythology
  topic: keywords
subject: Intersectionality
  topic: keywords
subject: Postcolonial Literature
  topic: keywords
subject: Critical Race Studies
  topic: keywords
creator: Francesca Cichetti
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Francesca Cichetti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 137
ending page: 165
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.284

Ovid zwischen Biographie und Roman
type: item
description: In 2012, Der junge Ovid, the unfinished work of the late Diane Middlebrook (1939–2007), was published in Austria. Various aspects make it a very special book: the translation was published more than two years before the original: The Augustan poet is brought to life in social and cultural history chapters and biographical, fictional passages that depict a possible reality. Middlebrook’s widower, Carl Djerassi (1923–2015), widely known as the ‘Mother of the Pill’ and as the author of novels and plays belonging to the new genres he created, “science-in-fiction” and “science-in-theatre”, asked me to check philological details before going to press. In close cooperation with the publisher Andres Müry, Djerassi’s wishes came true: the publication was followed by a book launch, readings from the book and a major event at the University of Vienna (with keynote and round table): Ovid is shown as a newborn, as a child hanging on the lips of his mother, the first storyteller of his life, as a young man full of literary talent taking his first steps in the city of Rome, and as a famous author at the age of 46, surrounded by frescoes depicting scenes from his opus magnum, the Metamorphoses. The following pages retell the fascinating story of the publication of a modern book about an ancient author under unconventional circumstances and compare the translation with the original.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Diane Middlebrook
  topic: keywords
subject: Carl Djerassi
  topic: keywords
subject: Ovid
  topic: keywords
subject: biography
  topic: keywords
subject: novel
  topic: keywords
creator: Sonja Schreiner
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Sonja Schreiner https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 442
ending page: 479
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.278

Ovid at Cair Paravel: Periodization and the Ages of Man in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia
type: item
description: Unlike many fantasy series, the Chronicles of Narnia have an explicit beginning, middle, and an end – a chronology. A mainstay of children’s literature since their publication in the 1950s, the Chronicles have received a great deal of scholarly attention, but most of it directed to Christian allegorical themes. The way that Lewis composed his novels out of order, or the strategies with which he shaped the reader’s expectations by doing interesting things with time, has gone largely unnoticed. Yet, in recent years scholarly approaches to the Chronicles have expanded to consider questions of mythology, cosmology, environmentalism, ideology, and even politics. This paper adds to that expansion by turning to the classical elements in the Chronicles. By examining the ways in which C. S. Lewis uses narrative techniques borrowed from Ovid’s periodization in the Metamorphoses, this paper argues that Ovid was Lewis’s main source of inspiration for devising a chronology for Narnia, and moreover, that we should not be surprised to find such a presence in Lewis’s work. Although mostly remembered as a medievalist, Lewis wrote with a dizzying array of inspiration and influences, and to underplay his classical training is to obfuscate the subtlety in his compositional technique.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Chronology
  topic: keywords
subject: classical reception
  topic: keywords
subject: Metamorphoses
  topic: keywords
subject: Narnia
  topic: keywords
subject: periodization
  topic: keywords
creator: Emma Ljung
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Emma Ljung https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 285
ending page: 311
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.283

‘The Wide Canvas of Human Drama’
type: item
description: This paper argues that representation of classical antiquity through graphic novel runs a risk of idealizing reconstructed antiquity. In a way similar to the archaic and classical Greek representation in visual arts of the content of heroic (fragmentary) epic, 21st-century retelling in Age of Bronze fantasizes with regard to both narratology and outlook. In 1998 Eisner Award-wining cartoonist Eric Shanower started Age of Bronze, a serialized Trojan War account, 34 episodes of which have appeared up to date. The graphic novelization aims to ‘present the complete story of the world-famous War at Troy, freshly retold for the 21st century’. Its format serves to have ‘all the drama of the ancient and thrilling tradition unfold before your eyes.’ As its sources it lists Homer’s Iliad, works from classical, medieval and renaissance literature, and archaeological excavations. The artist uses different styles for episodes from various sources, thus imitating the archaic and classical vase paintings’ attempt to stereotype the narrative in visual representation. Shanower’s detailed processing of contemporary visualization enforces a new standard of the heroic world’s representation. The decision to translate antiquity’s patchwork of stories, fragments and testimonia into a single all-encompassing thread echoes both ancient epics’ tendency to ‘contain’, and novels’ to work against medias in res. The series’ attempt ‘to be true to all traditions’ does cater ‘those who think visually’, but envisions, I argue, a fantasy rather than ‘Troy sprung to life’.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: graphic novel
  topic: keywords
subject: Age of Bronze
  topic: keywords
subject: Eric Shanower
  topic: keywords
subject: retelling
  topic: keywords
subject: idealized antiquity
  topic: keywords
creator: Ronald Blankenborg
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Ronald Blankenborg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 380
ending page: 409
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.282

Snatched from Spring
type: item
description: Although often making direct appearances in YA fantasy literature as actual characters, Hades and Persephone – and their myth – can also be used as a paradigm based on which authors develop their characters and plots. This type of reinterpretation is at the core of two recently published books in the aforementioned genre: A court of mist and fury (2016), by Sarah J. Maas; and Midnight sun (2020), by Stephenie Meyer. In both books, some of the main aspects of the myth as well as distinguishable attributes from the gods are used to structure the relationship between the main characters. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse how Maas and Meyer appropriated elements from the Greek myth to create their own innovative versions of the rape of Persephone, especially concerning the love relationship resulting from these retellings.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Young adult literature
  topic: keywords
subject: The rape of Persephone
  topic: keywords
subject: Twilight saga
  topic: keywords
subject: A court of thorns and roses series
  topic: keywords
creator: Thais Rocha Carvalho
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Thais Rocha Carvalho https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 312
ending page: 333
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.280

Un-silencing the Girls: Critical Classical Reception in Feminist Retellings of Greek Myths
type: item
description: In recent feminist retellings of Greek myths, the Trojan War has become the preferred mytho-historical setting for reexamining gender performativity in the ancient world. The Iliad and the Odyssey are foundational texts for how Western culture has historically characterized heroic masculinity, and, in contrast, tragic femininity. Modern novels such as Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls (2018), its sequel Women of Troy (2021), and Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships (2019) turn the focus to the largely silent women of these epics. Through the voices of figures such as Briseis and Andromache, Barker and Haynes adopt a critical narrative of masculine ideals, including the glamorization of war and brutality, in order to highlight women’s endurance of sexual violence and victimization as a result of men’s pursuit of glory. As this article explores, by enabling the once silenced women of Troy to voice their experiences of rape and enslavement, these three modern retellings challenge both ancient and contemporary notions of ideal masculinity while further highlighting the historical longevity of sexual violence against women as a consequence of men’s wars.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Epic
  topic: keywords
subject: Trojan Women
  topic: keywords
subject: Rape
  topic: keywords
subject: Toxic Masculinity
  topic: keywords
subject: Tragic Femininity
  topic: keywords
creator: Briana King
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Briana King https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 8
ending page: 46
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.279

The Golden Ass
type: item
description: For some time, the debt – not merely literary – that Western culture owes to Apuleius’ Golden Ass has been acknowledged. If the Metamorphoses, unlike other classical texts, have enjoyed a certain success in the landscape of the graphic novel, it is also thanks to the free rewriting composed by the Italian cartoonist Milo Manara (1945–). Devoted to erotic production, in 1999 he publishes his version of the novel, where he cuts, stitches together, and reinterprets many sequences of the novel. The contribution reconstructs the editorial history of the work and, by comparing it with its model, investigates its transmedial configuration through the analysis of structures, images, and language.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Apuleius
  topic: keywords
subject: Metamorphoses
  topic: keywords
subject: Milo Manara
  topic: keywords
subject: graphic novel
  topic: keywords
subject: erotic comics
  topic: keywords
creator: Pietro Vesentin
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Pietro Vesentin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 410
ending page: 441
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.277

Alexander the Great Scouser
type: item
description: The idea to give Alexander the Great a life in Liverpool came to my students during a lesson in which we had a lively discussion about the personality and deeds of the Macedonian king. My students were called to decide whether the historical Alexander was great or not, before moving to meeting the legendary hero of the Alexander Romance. The module, entitled ‘The Alexander Romance: An Introduction to the Ancient Reception of Alexander the Great’ was held online in February-March 2023 at the Continuing Education department of the University of Liverpool, and was designed to provide the students with an introduction to the ancient reception of Alexander the Great, with a particular focus on the Alexander Romance. My students gained a deeper understanding of this iconic Macedonian hero and formed educated opinions on his place in ancient history and mythology; they surely went above a beyond my expectations, making Alexander one of them, a Liverpudlian on a quest.
subject: Work Journals
  topic: section
subject: Alexander the Great
  topic: keywords
subject: Classical Reception
  topic: keywords
subject: Liverpool (UK)
  topic: keywords
subject: Alexander Romance
  topic: keywords
subject: Pseudo-Callisthenes
  topic: keywords
subject: Continuing Education
  topic: keywords
creator: Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti
creator: Sarah Crompton
creator: Michael Evans
creator: April Probert
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-04-23
publication date: 2025-04-23
starting page: 198
ending page: 231
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol20.276

Rezension von Suzanne Collins: Die Tribute von Panem auf Lateinisch. De sortibus Pani tributis
type: item
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Katharina Wesselmann
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Katharina Wesselmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-12-09
publication date: 2024-12-09
starting page: 518
ending page: 523
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol19.275

Divine Ontology and Multicultural Representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
type: item
description: The Marvel Cinematic Universe (‘MCU’) is one of the most lucrative entertainment franchises ever, and shapes the pop-cultural imagination to no small degree. This paper examines the MCU’s receptions of divine and supernatural characters from two interrelated research foci: (1) divine ontology, and (2) multicultural representations of premodern religions and civilizations. The first topic examines how the MCU remediates godhood: what does it mean to be a god in the MCU? Where lies the distinction between gods, heroes, and superheroes? What are the socio-cultural implications of these conceptualizations? We argue that the MCU currently exhibits a variety of divine definitions and modalities. The second topic investigates how the MCU represents various premodern cultures and mythologies. It demonstrates how the MCU’s storytelling and representation of (inter)mythological communities are driven (but not entirely subsumed) by white and Western cultural concerns. In sum, this paper investigates contemporary meanings attached to premodern religion and mythology by one of the largest entertainment franchises, illuminating not only how these meanings stand in dialogue with evidence but also what they reveal about contemporary society and how present-day creators look towards world mythologies.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Marvel Cinematic Universe
  topic: keywords
subject: mythology
  topic: keywords
subject: multiculturalism
  topic: keywords
subject: reception
  topic: keywords
subject: superheroes
  topic: keywords
subject: divinity
  topic: keywords
creator: Maciej Paprocki
creator: Alexander Vandewalle
creator: Joel Gordon
creator: Kate Minniti
creator: David Anderson
creator: Briana Jackson
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Dr. Maciej Paprocki, Alexander Vandewalle, Dr. Joel Gordon, Dr. Kate Minniti, Dr. David S. Anderson, Dr. Briana C. Jackson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-04-23
publication date: 2025-04-23
starting page: 130
ending page: 190
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol20.274

„Es wehte homerische Luft“
type: item
description: Based on several of his works, this article deals with Erhart Kästner’s image of Greece. As such, it is part of the general history of the German reception of Greece, which began in the 18th century and reached its peak in the 19th century. Although Kästner sees himself as part of this tradition, his stay in Greece from 1941 to 1945 served the propaganda of the National Socialist rulers in Germany. In the books he agreed to write about his stay for the soldiers of the German Wehrmacht, the traditional bourgeois image of Greece merges with racist and National Socialist ideological elements. As a result, these books act as propaganda for the war (Griechenland. Ein Buch aus dem Krieg), or as legitimization for the right of the German occupiers to remain in Greece (Kreta). After the war, the “offensive” passages were removed from the text and the books were reworked. Today they are presented as belletristic travel literature. This uncritical approach is not appropriate to Kästner’s works. The article aims to provide a basis for an historical contextualization of the two works Griechenland. Ein Buch aus dem Krieg and Kreta, written during the Second World War.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Erhart Kästner
  topic: keywords
subject: Reception of Antiquity
  topic: keywords
subject: National Socialism
  topic: keywords
subject: Philhellenism
  topic: keywords
subject: Reception of Greece
  topic: keywords
creator: Timo Klär
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 Timo Klär https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-04-23
publication date: 2025-04-23
starting page: 30
ending page: 69
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol20.273

Review of Hamish Williams: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics
type: item
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Alicia Matz
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Alicia Matz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-05-08
publication date: 2024-05-08
starting page: 146
ending page: 150
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol18.272

Greek Antiquity in Lockdown
type: item
description: This is an interview with Jonathan Muroya, an illustrator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His Greek Quarantology is an animated cartoon series that offers a peek at figures from Greek Mythology as they navigate life in lockdown.
subject: Interviews
  topic: section
subject: Jonathan Muroya
  topic: keywords
subject: Greek Mythology
  topic: keywords
subject: Classical Reception
  topic: keywords
subject: Cartoons
  topic: keywords
creator: Luis Unceta Gómez
creator: Anastasia Bakogianni
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Luis Unceta Gómez, Anastasia Bakogianni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-05-08
publication date: 2024-05-08
starting page: 116
ending page: 124
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol18.271

Vorsicht vor Spartacus?
type: item
description: Starting with the hypothesis that textbooks are strongly ideologically charged, this paper analyses the representation of the Spartacus uprising in history textbooks that were in use between 1949 and 1989 in the FRG and the GDR. Due to its identity-defining function for European cultures, Roman antiquity has always been an important reference in recent and modern history. Spartacus, as a slave leader, has been interpreted very differently in different contexts and is therefore ideally suited to examine how in such social and political contexts textbooks were produced and read, showing further how ideologically biased perceptions of history would force their way unhindered into the historical consciousness of younger generations.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: History textbooks
  topic: keywords
subject: textbook research
  topic: keywords
subject: historical consciousness
  topic: keywords
subject: Spartacus
  topic: keywords
subject: slavery
  topic: keywords
subject: history teaching
  topic: keywords
creator: Pia Düvel
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Pia Düvel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-05-08
publication date: 2024-05-08
starting page: 1
ending page: 44
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol18.270

Rezension von Victoria Austen: Analysing the Boundaries of the Ancient Roman Garden. (Re)Framing the Hortus
type: item
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Jens Fischer
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 Jens Fischer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-05-08
publication date: 2024-05-08
starting page: 125
ending page: 131
doi: 10.34679/thersites.vol18.269