War as spectacle
Subtitle: ancient and modern perspectives on the display of armed conflict
By: edited by Anastasia Bakogianni and Valerie M. Hope
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2015
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 454
ISBN-13: 9781472522290; 9781472527554; 9781472524539
Subjects: War in art; HISTORY / Ancient / General; War in mass media; War in literature; War; History
Description: "War as Spectacle examines the display of armed conflict in classical antiquity and its impact in the modern world. The contributors address the following questions: how and why was war conceptualized as a spectacle in our surviving ancient Greek and Latin sources? How has this view of war been adapted in post-classical contexts and to what purpose? This collection of essays engages with the motif of war as spectacle through a variety of theoretical and methodological pathways and frameworks. They include the investigation of the portrayal of armed conflict in ancient Greek and Latin Literature, History and Material Culture, as well as the reception of these ancient narratives and models in later periods in a variety of media. The collection also investigates how classical models contribute to contemporary debates about modern wars, including the interrogation of propaganda and news coverage. Embracing an interdisciplinary approach to the study of ancient warfare and its impact, the volume looks at a variety of angles and perspectives, including visual display and its exploitation for political capital, the function of internal and external audiences, ideology and propaganda and the commentary on war made possible by modern media. The reception of the theme in other cultures and eras demonstrates its continued relevance and the way antiquity is used to justify as well as to critique later conflicts"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: Introduction; title: Part I: Homeric Spectacles in Ancient Greece and Beyond; title: Introducing the Iliadic Spectacle of War: The Movement from Formal Duel to Battle Scenes in Books 3-4, Tobias Myers (Columbia University, USA); title: From Our Own Correspondent: Authorial Commentary on 'Spectacles of War' in Homer and in the Tale of the Heike, Naoko Yamagata (The Open University, UK); title: Martial Extravaganzas on the Nineteenth-Century London Stage: Robert Brough and Francis Burnand parody Homer, Justine McConnell (APGRD, Oxford University, UK); title: Simile, Spectacle and Scene: Homeric Epic and Malick's The Thin Red Line, Jon Hesk (University of St. Andrews, UK); title: Part II: Military and Cinematic Spectacles in the Service of Politics and Ideology; title: Plato's Cinematic Vision: War as Spectacle in Four Dialogues (Laches, Republic, Timaeus and Critias), Andrea Capra (University of Milan, Italy); title: 'The Greatest Runway Show in History': Paul Violi's House of Xerxes and the Spectacle of War, Emma Bridges (The Open University, UK); title: Parading War and Victory under the Greek Military Dictatorship (1967-1974), Gonda Van Steen (University of Florida, USA); title: The Anti-War Spectacle: The Denunciation of War in Michael Cacoyannis' Euripidean Trilogy, Anastasia Bakogianni (The Open University, UK); title: Part III: Latin Spectacles of War; title: The Spectacle of War in Roman Epic, Neil W. Bernstein (Ohio University, USA); title: Death on the Margins: Statius and the Spectacle of the Dying Epic Hero, Helen Lovatt (University of Nottingham, UK); title: Bodies and the Bereaved: The Spectacle of Mourning Rome's Fallen Soldiers, Valerie Hope (The Open University, UK); title: Shadow-Boxing in the East: The Spectacle of Romano-Parthian Conflict in Tacitus, Rhiannon Ash (Merton College, Oxford University, UK); title: Part IV: Spectacles of War in Material Culture; title: An Unwinding Story: The Influence of Trajan's Column on the Depiction of Warfare, Andrew Fear (University of Manchester, UK); title: Triumphal New York: the 'Roman' Arches of New York City, Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis (City University of New York, USA); title: The Monument and Altar to Liberty: A Memory Site for the United States' Own Thermopylae, Jared Simard (The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA); title: Bibliography; title: Index.