Reception Studies explore the relationship between ancient and modern texts and contexts, and offer unique opportunities to study works and ideas generally beyond the scope of the Classical discipline. For instance, Sigmund Freud’s influential reading of the Oedipus story in “Interpretation of Dreams”, Zack Snyder’s adaptation of the story about the Spartans at Thermopylae in 300, the modern Olympic movement’s iconic references to ancient Greece (e.g., the torch relay, the ceremonial flame, the Olympic oath, etc.), even the neo-Classical architecture of the Mellon Institute, Alumni Hall, and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial right here in Pittsburgh, are all examples of “receptions” by post-Classical cultures of ancient Greco-Roman texts and ideas. Several researchers in our department study post-Classical receptions of Greek and Latin culture, creating interdisciplinary research areas that span ancient and modern languages and literatures, philosophy, history of science, religious studies, film and theater studies, and the history of art and architecture. Researchers and students focusing on reception leverage these interdisciplinary connections not only to generate new insights about the receiving culture(s), but also to enrich our understanding of ancient sources as well.
Related Faculty
- A. J. Korzeniewski
- Andrew Wein
- Dennis Looney
- Elizabeth Archibald
- Ellen Cole Lee
- Grace Funsten
- Jacques A. Bromberg
- Maggie Beeler
- Nicholas F. Jones
- Sarah Brucia Breitenfeld
Publications
- “Never Bury My Bones Apart From Yours”: Iliad Reception in Xena: Warrior Princess
- Divina Mens: Imperial Propaganda in De architectura 6.1
- Dangerous Defaults: Demographics and Identities Within and Without Video Games
- Cultural exchange and colonization: considering Roman-Italian relations within the context of contemporary postcolonial literature and theory
- The comparative impact of Old English and Classical language on the poetics of modern fantasy
- Sport and Peace: Panhellenic Myth-Making and the Modern Olympics
- Optical theory and feminine auctoritas within Chaucer's the Tale of Melibee with an English translation of Albertanus of Brescia's Liber consolationis et consilii in full
- Global Classics
- Pax Olympica: The Rhetoric and Ideology of the Olympic Truce
- Aeschylus and the Cuban Counter-Revolution
- Medea, la Llorona, y la tragedia de las desplazadas
- Noh and Greek Tragedy
- Interview with Miyagi Satoshi
- Greek Tragedy and the Socratic Tradition
- In Search of Prometheus: Aeschylean Wanderings in Latin America
- “A Better and More Peaceful [Greek] World”: The Rhetoric and Ideology of the Ancient Olympic Truce
- Japanese Adaptations of Greek Tragedy