Edited by Agnès Garcia-Ventura and Lorenzo Verderame
This book is an enthusiastic celebration of the ways in which popular culture has consumed aspects of the ancient Near East to construct new realities. The editors have brought together an impressive line-up of scholars—archaeologists, philologists, historians, and art historians—to reflect on how objects, ideas, and interpretations of the ancient Near East have been remembered, constructed, reimagined, mythologized, or indeed forgotten within our shared cultural memories. The exploration of cultural memories has revealed how they inform the values, structures, and daily life of societies over time. This is therefore not a collection of essays about the deep past but rather about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Reviews:
"Em suma, estamos perante um volume muito bem conseguido, que lança uma nova luz sobre os estudos da recepção do Próximo Oriente antigo, apresentando importantes estudos de caso de áreas tão diversas quanto a música, a literatura, a arte, ou o cinema.… Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond continua assim, na senda de Frederick N.Bohrer e Shawn Malley, o imprescindível estudo das percepções, transmissões e apro- priações do Oriente antigo, alargando o escopo a outras áreas que não meramente a imprensa e a arte."—Maria de Fátima Rosa Centro de História, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, in CADMO 30 (2021): 271–273
Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond
More info
332 pages
6 x 9 inches
978-1-948488-24-2 (paperback)
978-1-948488-25-9 (PDF)
March 2020
Table of Contents
Foreword Paul Collins
Preliminary Considerations Agnès Garcia-Ventura and Lorenzo Verderame
Visual Arts
Mesopotamia in Miró. Miró in Mesopotamia Pedro Azara and Marc Marín
Case Studies in the Popular Reception of the Tell Asmar Sculpture Hoard Jean M. Evans
Images of Ruins as Metaphorical Places of Transformation: The Case of Persepolis Silvana Di Paolo
Performing Arts
Artaserse: An Ancient Oriental Ruler on Modern Opera Stages? Kerstin Dross-Krüpe
When Imitation Became Reality: The Historical Pantomime Sardanapal (1908) at the Royal Opera of Berlin Valeska Hartmann
Ye Go to Thy Abzu: How Norwegian Black Metal Used Mesopotamian References, Where It Took Them from, and How It Usually Got Them Wrong Daniele Federico Rosa
Film and Television
“Babylon’s Last Bacchanal”: Mesopotamia and the Near East in Epic Biblical Cinema Kevin McGeough
He Who Saw the Stars: Retelling Gilgamesh in Star Trek: The Next Generation Eva Miller
Evil from an Ancient Past and the Archaeology of the Beyond: An Analysis of the Movies The Exorcist (1973) and The Evil Dead (1981) Lorenzo Verderame
Novels and Comics
The Ancient Near East in Czech Comics and Popular Culture: The Case of Jáchym and the Printer’s Devil Jana Mynářová and Pavel Kořínek
Gilgamesh, The (Super)Hero Luigi Turri
Mystery Literature and Assyriology Francesco Pomponio
Ancient Aliens, Modern Cosmologies: Zecharia Sitchin and the Transformation of Mesopotamian Myth Ryan Winters
Archaeologist in the Middle
The (In)visibility of Archaeology Davide Nadali
Imagining the Tower of Babel in the Twenty-First Century: Is a New Interpretation of the Ziggurat of Babylon Possible? Juan-Luis Montero Fenollós
Athletic Disciplines in the Ancient Near East: Representation and Reconstruction Silvia Festuccia
Afterword. Memory and Memories: From the Ancient Near East to the Modern West Frances Pinnock
Contributors
Subject Index