Present Lives of Ancient Times

Forthcoming, 2027

The academic study of popular culture has boomed in recent decades just as the cultural artifacts under study continue to proliferate. No-one involved — consumers, creators and critics alike —can have failed to notice how widely the ancient past is featured in this output but a closer look at the academic analysis reveals an excessive predilection for studies of classical Hollywood cinema and Anglo-Saxon literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Other periods or audiovisual and literary currents have hardly been the focus of researchers' reflections. Likewise, areas such as comics, board games, music, video games or, even less so, urban art, the internet, social networks and tattoos have not been considered, until today, as equally relevant sources of study in this field.

This book features work by professionals from various disciplines including classical history, egyptology, assyriology, literary criticism, cultural studies, pedagogy, audiovisual communication, and art history. The material is divided into two sections, the first of which focuses on the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations and the second looks at the classical world of Greece and Rome. In each section, the chapters focus on the reception and representation of these civilizations in films, TV series, comics, literature, games, music, and other media or current trends.