Playful Classics

Classical Reception as a Creative Process

Juliette Harrisson, Martin Lindner, Luis Unceta Gómez

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781350418622
• eBook ISBN: 9781350418646
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This is the first book to deal exclusively with ludic interactions with classical antiquity – an understudied research area within classical reception studies – that can shed light on current processes of construction and appropriation of the Greco-Roman world. Classical antiquity has, for many years, been sold as a product and consumed in a wide variety of forms of entertainment. As a result, games, playing and playful experiences are a privileged space for the reception of antiquity. Through the medium of games, players, performers and audiences are put into direct contact with the classical past, and encouraged to experience it in a participative, creative and subjective fashion.

The chapters in this volume, written by scholars and practitioners, cover a variety of topics and cultural artefacts including toys, board games and video games, as well as immersive experiences such as museums, theme parks and toga parties. The contributors tackle contemporary ludic practices and several papers establish a dialogue between artists and scholars, contrasting and harmonising their different approaches to the role of playfulness. Other chapters explore the educational potential of these manifestations, or their mediating role in shaping our conceptions of ancient Greece and Rome. Altogether, this edited collection is the first to offer a comprehensive overview of the ways we can play with antiquity.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Notes on Contributors
• Thinking about Playful Classics: A Beginners’ Guide
• Section I: Toys and Games
• Interlude
• 1 Playing with Caesar and Cleopatra: ‘Anticizing’ Play Figures and Historical Thinking in (Young) Children
• 2 Card Games and Antiquity in Spain: Some Examples
• 3 Designing Archaeologists vs Treasure Hunters: Just Another Board Game?
• Section II: Virtual Realities
• Interlude
• 4 The Playing Field: The Study of Classical Antiquity in Video Games and the Database Project Paizomen
• 5 Let’s Analyse Ancient Greece: Digital Game-based Learning and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Section III: Playing on Stage
• Interlude
• 6 Repræsentatio in Musica: Antiquity in French Baroque Music and Its Impact on Today’s Performance Practice
• 7 ‘That’s Greek to Me’: Disco Life, Game Shows and Queer Intimacies in Richard Move’s The Show (Achilles Heels)
• 8 Playing Classical Drama: ‘Young’ Theatre Festivals and the ‘non-school’ of Ravenna
• Section IV: Immersive Antiquities
• Interlude
• 9 Toga Parties: Ludic Re-enactments of a Lubricious Rome
• 10 Curses, Mummies and Colonial Style: Archaeology in the Theme Park
• 11 Classical Reception in Street Art Performance
• Section V: National Traditions
• Interlude
• 12 Forges’ Vision of the Roman Conquest of the Iberian Peninsula
• 13 Playing with Greek Mythology in Russian Animation
• 14 Playground WeChat?! Frames of Western Classics in Chinese Social Media
• Coda
• 15 The Interaction of Play and Other Receptions
• Index
• Copyright