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Ancient Epic in Film and Television
Edited by Amanda Potter and Hunter Gardner
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Book Presentation:
How do epic tropes shape representations of the ancient world and determine contemporary understandings of historical events? What features of ancient epic persistently emerge in science fiction and fantasy narratives adapted to the screen, and why? How does the different scope of televisual versus cinematic media impact the representation of conventions derived from ancient epic?
The international range of contributors to this volume respond to these questions by looking for features of epic outside the traditional realm of Greco-Roman antiquity, including historical films and series, fantasy, science fiction and documentary. By identifying epic conventions on the large and small screen, as well as within a range of speculative fictions in fantastical and futuristic settings, they consider the function of such conventions within their twenty-first-century production contexts.
About the authors:
Amanda Potter is a Visiting Fellow at the Open University, where she was awarded her PhD in 2014 for her thesis on viewer reception of classical myth in Xena: Warrior Princess and Charmed. Her main research interest is public engagement with the ancient world, including audience reception of classics in popular film and television, and creative engagement with classical mythology and ancient history. She has published on a number of television series and films including Xena: Warrior Princess, Charmed, Doctor Who and spinoffs, Wonder Woman, Game of Thrones, HBO’s Rome and STARZ Spartacus.Hunter Gardner is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina. She is the author of Pestilence and the Body Politic in Latin Literature (OUP, 2019). She is co-editor of Nostos: Odyssean Identities in Modern Cultures (Ohio State University Press, 2014), Gendering Time in Augustan Love Elegy (OUP, 2013).
Press Reviews:
Gardner and Potter have produced a fascinating collection of essays on epic screen productions that defines the epic genre outside its traditional parameters and covers a wide variety of shows across different decades from the 1980s to 2021. ― Professor Antony Augoustakis, Department of the Classics, University of Illinois
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
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