Mark Antony and Popular Culture
Mark Antony and Popular Culture

Author: Rachael Kelly

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-06-12

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0857735896

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Shakespeare called him "Th' abstract of all faults / That all men follow". For Plutarch he was a bon vivant whose excessive appetites and poor judgement overwhelmed his potential for greatness. History remembers him as the man who threw away an empire for love: an imperfect romantic hero, dashing but decadent, whose tragic narrative is conveniently contained by his death by suicide in Cleopatra's arms. Stemming from hostile Roman propaganda in the years leading up to his death, Mark Antony is generally presented in popular culture as a deeply flawed character, subject to emotional and physical excesses that are understood in gendered terms as defective, feminised masculinity. His notoriety for drunkenness, debauchery, decadence and profligacy have survived and flourished in contemporary screen representations. But who was Mark Antony? Was he Richard Burton's Byronic dilettante, the brooding soldier who allows his love for Cleopatra to dictate his political policy? Was he James Purefoy's amoral, impulsive bully-boy, loyal to no-one but himself and dedicated to the relentless pursuit of bodily gratification? Both - or neither? In this fascinating account of a classical figure and his reception in popular culture, Rachael Kelly traces the Mark Antony myth in Hollywood historical epic film and television and examines the complex discourses of hegemonic masculinity that have shaped it. Certain tropes occur time and again in constructing Mark Antony for the screen, nurtured by the strong influence of Roman gendered social mores on Western society. Kelly exposes and examines these tropes in order to look at how and why Mark Antony as pop culture icon differs so substantially and specifically from the actual historical figure Marcus Antonius - once the most powerful man in the Roman world, and the man who nearly led the Republic into empire.

Popular Culture in Ancient Rome
Popular Culture in Ancient Rome

Author: J. P. Toner

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-25

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0745654908

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The mass of the Roman people constituted well over 90% of the population. Much ancient history, however, has focused on the lives, politics and culture of the minority elite. This book helps redress the balance by focusing on the non-elite in the Roman world. It builds a vivid account of the everyday lives of the masses, including their social and family life, health, leisure and religious beliefs, and the ways in which their popular culture resisted the domination of the ruling elite. The book highlights previously under-considered aspects of popular culture of the period to give a fuller picture. It is the first book to take fully into account the level of mental health: given the physical and social environment that most people faced, their overall mental health mirrored their poor physical health. It also reveals fascinating details about the ways in which people solved problems, turning frequently to oracles for advice and guidance when confronted by difficulties. Our understanding of the non-elite world is further enriched through the depiction of sensory dimensions: Toner illustrates how attitudes to smell, touch, and noise all varied with social status and created conflict, and how the emperors tried to resolve these disputes as part of their regeneration of urban life. Popular Culture in Ancient Rome offers a rich and accessible introduction to the usefulness of the notion of popular culture in studying the ancient world and will be enjoyed by students and general readers alike.

Marcus Antonius
Marcus Antonius

Author: I. Luc

Publisher: Archeobooks

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788377847978

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The present collection of articles is devoted to one of the most famous figures of Roman history. For centuries now, Mark Antony has attracted the attention of not only historians, but also pop culture artists, mainly due to his fascinating life. The origin of his legend is also one of the major issues, on which the attention of the collection's authors have focused. [...] The contributions which constitute the collection shed light on these aspects of Mark Antony's career and legend which do not usually fall within the areas of interest of authors of classic versions of this remarkable and controversial politican's biography. Similarly to an earlier publication devoted to Sulla, the reviewed collection will be valuable complementary contribution to the history of the last generation of the Roman Republic. The fact that this undertaking employed representatives of various scientific fields of study (historians, philologists, and archeologists) will certainly have an impact on its cohesion. One the other hand, however, it seems that this is a price worth paying for the opportunity to look at the history of Rome and Antony in so many different ways. The present collection of articles reviewed certainly deserves publication.

Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture
Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture

Author: Marshall Fishwick

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1135797846

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Learn why Cicero is considered one of the most important individuals in all of Western culture! Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was a poet, philosopher, writer, scholar, barrister, statesman, patriot, and the linguist who helped make Latin into a universal language. His many influences in rhetoric, politics, literature, and ideas are seen throughout Western civilization. Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture explores the fascinating man behind the eloquence and his monumental effect on language, morality, and popularity of Western culture. One of the leading authorities on popular culture, Dr. Marshall Fishwick discusses the multifaceted man who may be, besides Jesus, the central figure in all of Western civilization. The author recounts his own personal quest of traveling the land and ancient cities of Italy, gleaning insights from people he met along the way who have knowledge about Cicero’s life and times. However, Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture is more than a simple search for the man and his accomplishments, a man whose mere words changed the way people think. This book shows in each of us the roots of our own ideas, beliefs, and culture. Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture discusses: Cicero’s rise to acclaim his affect on the language of popular culture common traits Cicero shared with Thomas Jefferson rhetoric, the art of oratory community two pivotal essays on friendship and old age vision of his reputation the search for peace Marshall McLuhan, Ciceronian Cicero’s Rome Cicero’s ancestral home of Arpinum Julius Caesar, politics, and the influences of Cicero the Roman republic and its downfall America as the new Rome much more! Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture is a startling, entertaining examination of the man who made Western culture what it is today. The book is insightful reading for educators, students, or anyone interested in one of the major forces in popular culture.

Imperial Projections
Imperial Projections

Author: Sandra R. Joshel

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2005-09-13

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780801882685

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, Martin M. Winkler, and Maria Wyke--Peter Bondanella, Indiana University "Classical Outlook"

Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra

Author: Colleen McCullough

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-12-03

Total Pages: 836

ISBN-13: 1476767653

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In this final novel in the Roman series, McCullough turns her attention to the legendary romance of Antony and Cleopatra.

The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture
The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture

Author: Paul Arthur Cantor

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2012-11-05

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 081314082X

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Popular culture often champions freedom as the fundamentally American way of life and celebrates the virtues of independence and self-reliance. But film and television have also explored the tension between freedom and other core values, such as order and political stability. What may look like healthy, productive, and creative freedom from one point of view may look like chaos, anarchy, and a source of destructive conflict from another. Film and television continually pose the question: Can Americans deal with their problems on their own, or must they rely on political elites to manage their lives? In this groundbreaking work, Paul A. Cantor explores the ways in which television shows such as Star Trek, The X-Files, South Park, and Deadwood and films such as The Aviator and Mars Attacks! have portrayed both top-down and bottom-up models of order. Drawing on the works of John Locke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and other proponents of freedom, Cantor contrasts the classical liberal vision of America -- particularly its emphasis on the virtues of spontaneous order -- with the Marxist understanding of the "culture industry" and the Hobbesian model of absolute state control. The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture concludes with a discussion of the impact of 9/11 on film and television, and the new anxieties emerging in contemporary alien-invasion narratives: the fear of a global technocracy that seeks to destroy the nuclear family, religious faith, local government, and other traditional bulwarks against the absolute state.

Performing Memory in Art and Popular Culture
Performing Memory in Art and Popular Culture

Author: Liedeke Plate

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0415811406

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This volume pursues a new line of research in cultural memory studies by understanding memory as a performative act in art and popular culture. Here authors combine a methodological focus on memory as performance with a theoretical focus on art and popular culture as practices of remembrance. The essays in the book thus analyze what is at stake in the complex processes of remembering and forgetting, of recollecting and disremembering, of amnesia and anamnesis, that make up cultural memory.

Popular Culture in Europe since 1800
Popular Culture in Europe since 1800

Author: Tobias Becker

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-09-28

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1000954250

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This book tells the story of the history of popular culture in Europe since 1800, providing a framework which challenges traditional associations that have formulated popular culture firmly in relation to the post-1945 period and the economic power of the USA. Focusing on key themes associated with modernity – secularisation, industrialisation, social cohesion and control, globalisation and technological change – this synthesis of research across a very wide field fills a gap that has long been felt by students and educators working in the field of popular culture. While it is organised as a history of cultural forms, it can also be used across a wide range of social science and humanities programmes, including media and cultural studies, literary studies, sociology and European studies. Covering the subject with a broad number of themes, this book discusses popular culture through visual culture and performance, games, music, film, television and video games. Popular Culture in Europe since 1800 will be of interest to anyone looking for an engaged but concise overview of how book production and reading practices, visual cultures, music, performance and sports and games developed across Europe in the modern period.

Ancient Egypt in the Modern Imagination
Ancient Egypt in the Modern Imagination

Author: Eleanor Dobson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1786736705

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Ancient Egypt has always been a source of fascination to writers, artists and architects in the West. This book is the first study to address representations of Ancient Egypt in the modern imagination, breaking down conventional disciplinary boundaries between fields such as History, Classics, Art History, Fashion, Film, Archaeology, Egyptology, and Literature to further a nuanced understanding of ancient Egypt in cultures stretching from the eighteenth century to the present day, emphasising how some of the various meanings of ancient Egypt to modern people have traversed time and media. Divided into three themes, the chapters scrutinise different aspects of the use of ancient Egypt in a variety of media, looking in particular at the ways in which Egyptology as a discipline has influenced representations of Egypt, ancient Egypt's associations with death and mysticism, as well as connections between ancient Egypt and gendered power. The diversity of this study aims to emphasise both the multiplicity and the patterning of popular responses to ancient Egypt, as well as the longevity of this phenomenon and its relevance today.