Pantelis Michelakis - Böcker

Encounters with the Plague in Homer, Sophocles, and Thucydides explores three of the earliest, and most influential, accounts of plague visitations in Western literature: Homer's Iliad book 1 (1-487), Sophocles' Oedipus the King (esp. 1-215), and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War book 2 (esp. 47.3-54). The question at the core of this study is how a destructive force within narrative becomes a creative force for narrative itself: both in terms of the formation of narrative and in narrative's encounter with its readers and spectators as the hosts that will ensure its dissemination and its survival through time. The three accounts of plague visitations under discussion matter as examples of a particular type of narrative event associated with crisis. In all three of them, the plague spreads through seemingly disparate but closely interconnected social, material, and technical networks: different linguistic domains, structures of narrative space and time, routes of knowledge and affect, and biological and socio-political bodies. Thematically, the plague is a disruptive force that breaks down distinctions between and across such networks. At the same time, however, it is also a generative force that shows the capacity of narrative to expose the heterogeneous parts of such networks and the complex interconnections within and between them. By emphasizing the disruptive, invasive force of such narratives, with their power to spread like epidemic disease, this book offers a way of thinking through the anxieties generated by exposure to technical and artistic skill.

Introducing a largely neglected area of existing interactions between Greco-Roman antiquity and media theory, this volume addresses the question of why interactions in this area matter and how they might be developed further. It aims not only to promote awareness of the presence of the classics in media theory but also to encourage more media attentiveness among scholars of Greece and Rome. By bringing together an international team of scholars with interdisciplinary expertise in areas ranging from classical literature and classical reception studies to art history, media theory and media history, film studies, philosophy, and cultural studies, the volume as a whole engages with numerous aspects of 'classical' Greece and Rome revolving around issues of philosophy, cultural history, literature, aesthetics, and epistemology. Each chapter provides its own definition of what constitutes mediality and how it operates, constructs different genealogies of the concept of the medium, and engages with emergent fields within media studies that range from cultural techniques to media archaeology, diagrammatology, and intermediality. By seeking to foreground the persistency of Greco-Roman paradigms across the different strands of media theory the volume persuasively calls for a closer consideration of the conceptual underpinnings of the cultural practices around the transformation of ancient Greece and Rome into 'classics.'

Greek Tragedy on Screen considers a wide range of films which engage openly with narrative and performative aspects of Greek tragedy. This volume situates these films within the context of on-going debates in film criticism and reception theory in relation to theoretical or critical readings of tragedy in contemporary culture. Michelakis argues that film adaptations of Greek tragedy need to be placed between the promises of cinema for a radical popular culture, and the divergent cultural practices and realities of commercial films, art-house films, silent cinema, and films for television, home video, and DVD. In an age where the boundaries between art and other forms of cultural production are constantly intersected and reconfigured, the appeal of Greek tragedy for the screen needs to be related to the longing it triggers for origins and authenticity, as well as to the many uncertainties, such as homelessness, violence, and loss of identity, with which it engages.The films discussed include not only critically recognized films by directors such Michael Cacoyannis, Jules Dassin, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, but also more recent films by Woody Allen, Tony Harrison, Werner Herzog, and Lars von Trier. Moreover, it also considers earlier and largely neglected films of cinematic traditions which lie outside Hollywood.

Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the first play in the Oresteia trilogy, is one of the most influential theatrical texts in the global canon. In performance, translation, adaptation, along with sung and danced interpretations, it has been familiar in the Greek world and the Roman empire, and from the Renaissance to the contemporary stage. It has been central to the aesthetic and intellectual avant-garde as well as to radical politics of all complexions and to feminist thinking. Contributors to this interdisciplinary collection of eighteen essays on its performance history include classical scholars, theatre historians, and experts in English and comparative literature. All Greek and Latin has been translated; the book is generously illustrated, and supplemented with the useful research aid of a chronological appendix of performances.

This study examines how one of the most popular and glamorous figures of Greek mythology was imagined on the tragic stage of fifth-century Athens. Dr Michelakis argues that dramatists persistently appropriated Achilles to address concerns of their time, from heroism and education to individualism and gender. Whether an aristocrat, a dead warrior or a young man, the tragic Achilles serves as a receptacle for competing definitions of heroism, oscillating between presence and absence, the exceptional and the paradigmatic. Tragedy draws on Achilles to display and pit against one another contrasting views of the mythological self and of its rights and obligations, powers and limitations. The book considers the whole corpus of extant Greek tragedy, with particular attention paid to Aeschylus' Myrmidons and Euripides' Hecuba and Iphigenia at Aulis.

This study examines how one of the most popular and glamorous figures of Greek mythology was imagined on the tragic stage of fifth-century Athens. Dr Michelakis argues that dramatists persistently appropriated Achilles to address concerns of their time, from heroism and education to individualism and gender. Whether an aristocrat, a dead warrior or a young man, the tragic Achilles serves as a receptacle for competing definitions of heroism, oscillating between presence and absence, the exceptional and the paradigmatic. Tragedy draws on Achilles to display and pit against one another contrasting views of the mythological self and of its rights and obligations, powers and limitations. The book considers the whole corpus of extant Greek tragedy, with particular attention paid to Aeschylus' Myrmidons and Euripides' Hecuba and Iphigenia at Aulis.

"Iphigenia at Aulis" dramatises the myth of Iphigenia, the young virgin sacrificed by her father Agamemnon at the start of the expedition against Troy. The ongoing debates around Iphigenia's voluntary sacrifice, the corruption of the play's moral universe, and the corruption of its text make "Iphigenia at Aulis" one of Euripides' most intriguing and challenging plays. This Companion provides a summary of the plot, discusses the characters and main themes of the play, examines its mythological background, and explores the cultural, political, institutional, and theatrical contexts within which it was originally composed and performed. It also maps the changing fortunes and meanings of the play and outlines the history of its interpretations on page, stage, and screen.