Programme & Abstracts

Dr Simon Baines, Pro Dean (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures)
Emma Stafford (University of Leeds, Hercules Project Leader)

Chair: David Tandy (University of Leeds)

Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides (Monash University): Byzantine Herakles

Katrien Levrie (University of Leuven): The Herakles myth in Byzantine literature

Ivana Čapeta Rakić (University of Split): The constellation of Hercules and his struggle with the Nemean lion on two romanesque reliefs from Split Cathedral

Chair: Russell Goulbourne (King’s College London)

Alexandra Eppinger (University of Mainz): Hercules the younger? Heroic allusions in late eighteenth century British political cartoons

Maria-Elizabeth G. Xanthou (University of Leeds) and Kleoniki Kyrkopoulou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki): The defenders of the crown (Οἱ Ἡρακλεῖς τοῦ στέµµατος): the reception of Herakles in modern Greek political discourse and history

Chair: Helen Slaney (University of Roehampton)

Lucia Degiovanni (University of Bergamo): Hercules’ death and apotheosis in C18^th-19^th Italian Theatre

Deborah Chatr Aryamontri (Montclair State University): Hercules and the tragicomic in the epic theatre of Dürrenmatt

Owen Hodkinson (University of Leeds): Strategies of translation and transformation in Tony Harrison’s Labourers of Herakles

Sam Gartland (Christ Church & Corpus Christi, Oxford): Herakles in space – spatial forms in modern versions of Euripides’ Herakles

Chair: Henry Clarke (University of Leeds)

Adriana Nogueira (University of Algarve / CECH – University of Coimbra): When the saints are Greek heroes: Heracles and Saint Anthony of Lisbon

Pamina Fernández Camacho (University of Almería): What identity for Hercules Gaditanus? The role of the Gaditanian Hercules in the invention of national history in late medieval and early modern Spain

Maria Seijo-Richart (University of Leeds): A Coruña, cidade herculina: Hercules as founder of cities

Chair: Valerie Mainz (University of Leeds)

Anne-Sophie Laruelle (University of Liège)ː Hercules in the art of Renaissance Flemish tapestry

Tomas Macsotay (Universitat Pompeu Fabra): How Hercules lost his poise. Viewing inhibited and unleashed forcefulness in sculpture between Wickelmann and Emeric-David

Chair: Regine May (University of Leeds)

Will Desmond (University of Maynooth)ː Hercules among the Germans

Frances Foster (University of Cambridge)ː Demigod, god or monster? Rick Riordan’s Hercules

Eleanor OKell (University of Leeds)ː Hercules in 21st Century Historical Fiction

19.00

19.45

Reception and pre-performance talk: Tim Benjamin (composer)

Part I – Interval – Part II

Chair: Tony Keen (University of Roehampton)

Katherine Lu Hsu (Brooklyn College, CUNY), “Heroism” is a Madness: Transgressing Boundaries in Steve Moore’s Hercules: The Thracian Wars

T. H. M. Gellar-Goad (Wake Forest University): Sex and gender, race and Orientalism in Steve Moore’s Hercules comics

Ayelet Peer (Bar Ilan University): The labours of Hercules-Sama

Chair: Alastair Blanshard (University of Queensland)

Jon Solomon (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)ː The convergence of family values, computer-generated monsters, and cleavage in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

Alix Beaumont (York University)ː Through a glass partly: reflections of Hercules in cinema, television and video games

Sam Summers (University of Sunderland) A real American hero: the superhero-ification of Disney’s Hercules

Jean Alvares and Patricia Salzman-Mitchell (Montclair State University)ː Hercules’ self-fashioning on screenː millennial concerns and political dimensions

Virtual papers available online after the conference:

Elena d’Amelio (University of the Republic of San Marino)ː The myth of Hercules in 1950s and 1960s peplum films

Joel Gordon (University of Otago)ː “I am Hercules!”: rebooting, rationalization and heroism in 2014

Alastair Blanshard / Emma Stafford