eBook - ePub
Mirrors and Masks in the Roman Empire
Encounter, Performance and Metamorphosis
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
This book explores the ways in which masks and mirrors mediated encounters, enabled performances and effected visual and social metamorphoses across the Roman empire. The complex and multifaceted roles played by masks and mirrors in Roman culture has been the subject of several sophisticated analyses, though to date there has been a lack of significant scholarly engagement with geographical context. This volume explores the experiences of classical mirror and mask users across the Roman empire, from Gaul and Africa to Asia Minor and the Levant. It explores how particular themes are instantiated across a range of imperial contexts, as well as offering carefully selected case studies for detailed analysis.
At once confrontational and evasive, enabling and terrifying, mirrors and masks hold extraordinary resonance as objects, images and metaphors. As such, they had the capacity to mediate encounters, enable performances and effect visual and social metamorphoses in myriad different ways throughout the Roman Empire. Exploring these contexts can enrich our understanding of the meanings and uses of mirrors and masks in the Roman world, not only in isolation in their immediate locations, but also in the influence they might have exerted on each other. By examining how the populations of empire encountered themselves and each other through these masks and mirrors, we can also observe how classical culture allowed communication and miscommunication between these communities. Crucially, too, we can trace how Roman understandings of these objects not only shaped their own attitude to provincial users, but have also helped form perceptions that continue to mask those provincial populations today.
At once confrontational and evasive, enabling and terrifying, mirrors and masks hold extraordinary resonance as objects, images and metaphors. As such, they had the capacity to mediate encounters, enable performances and effect visual and social metamorphoses in myriad different ways throughout the Roman Empire. Exploring these contexts can enrich our understanding of the meanings and uses of mirrors and masks in the Roman world, not only in isolation in their immediate locations, but also in the influence they might have exerted on each other. By examining how the populations of empire encountered themselves and each other through these masks and mirrors, we can also observe how classical culture allowed communication and miscommunication between these communities. Crucially, too, we can trace how Roman understandings of these objects not only shaped their own attitude to provincial users, but have also helped form perceptions that continue to mask those provincial populations today.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Mirrors and Masks in the Roman Empire by Shelley Hales in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & History of Ancient Art. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Assuming the Mask
- 1 Masks and Mirrors in Rome
- 2 Masks and Encounters with Death
- 3 Metamorphic Mirrors and the Gender of Empire
- 4 Performing Masks
- 5 The Heterotopic Mirror
- Epilogue: Final Reflections
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Copyright