The Modern Hercules: part 2

The Modern Hercules: images of the hero from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century

This is the second part of the third of four volumes associated with the Hercules Project, all arising from the 2013 and 2017 conferences, with some additional commissioned chapters. These volumes are to appear in the Brill series Metaforms: Studies in the Reception of Classical Antiquity over 2020 and 2021.  The Modern Hercules follows on chronologically from the Exemplary volume, and is a companion to the Performed volume, covering Hercules’ appearances in various media from the nineteenth century to the present day. It considers screen adaptations of the hero, from the TV-screen to the cinema-screen to the video-game screen. Part 1 considered literature, children’s literature and political discourses.  The volume was published on 9th (e-copy) and 12th (hardback) November 2020.  It can be ordered via Brill's website.  See the review at BMCR 2022.06.06.

Cover image: Herakles discusses Boundary Issues with the Neighbours (lithograph 2007), courtesy of Marian Maguire.

Editors: Alastair J.L. Blanshard (The University of Queensland) Emma J. Stafford  (University of Leeds)

Overview of contents with links to abstracts

PART 2: From Image to Screen

Modes of Reception

Stephe Harrop, Herakles on Chesil Bank: The Archers, Disavowable Classicism and The Small Back Room (1949)

Michael Williams, 'The Muscles of Hercules beneath the Skin of Antinous': mapping Herculean stardom in film fan-magazine discourse

Matt Dillon, Hercules Down-Under: Antipodean experiences of the hero's machismo

For the Younger Viewer?

Arlene Allan, The Mighty Hercules Cartoon Series in Conversation with Steve Reeves’ Hercules, Super-Hero Comics and 1960s Societal Concerns

Eran Almagor, Asterix as the New Hercules? The Twelve Tasks of Asterix

Lisa Maurice, Disney’s Hercules in Context: mouse-morality for mini-heroes

Sam Summers, A real American hero: the superhero-ification of Disney's Hercules

Jon Solomon, The Transnational Convergence of Family Values, Computer-Generated Monsters, and Cleavage in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

Millennial Concerns

Ayelet Peer, The Labours of Hercules-Sama

Patricia Salzman-Mitchell and Jean Alvares, Hercules' Self-fashioning on Screen: millennial concerns and political dimensions

†Alix Beaumont, 'Through a Glass Partly' Reflections of Hercules in Video Games: the mythodiegesis of depictions of Hercules in video games, and their groundings in medium and textual requirements and contexts

From Graphic Novel to Blockbuster Film

Joel Gordon, ‘I am Hercules’ in 2014: rebooting and rationalizing a modern hero

Katherine Lu Hsu, Warriors, Murderers, Savages: violence in Steve Moore’s Hercules: The Thracian Wars

T.H.M. Gellar-Goad, Sex and Gender, Race and Orientalism in Steve Moore's Hercules Comics

Monica Cyrino, How The Rock became Rockules: Dwayne Johnson’s star text in Hercules (2014)