The Ancient World in Alternative History and Counterfactual Fictions (Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception)

Cover
Halftitle page
Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Contributors
Foreword: On the Usefulness of What Didn’t Happen
Acknowledgements
Note on Text/Translation
Introduction
	Lives of the Future Past
	Categorizing Counterfactual Thinking: What if it couldn’t be done?
	Time, What Is Time?
	Disrupting Time
	Overview of the Book
	Note
Section 1 Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi : History between Chance and Determinism
	1.1 ‘Delenda Est’: Counterfactual and Narratological Obligations in Poul Anderson’s Gerundive History
		Introduction
		Gerundive History
		Conclusion: Historical Necessity
		Notes
	1.2 Counter-Apostate, Counter-Christianity in John Christopher’s Fireball
		Introduction
		Fireball , a Summary
		Our Julian and Religion
		The Religious Implications of the Death of Our Julian
		Christopher’s Counter-Julian and Counter-Christianity
		Julian’s Interpretation of Divine Signs and Omens
		Uchronic Literary Techniques: Metaphysic sand Personal Identity
		Determinism and Contingency
		Historical Cause and Effect
		Conclusion
		Notes
	1.3 ‘All That Is Solid Melts into Air’: Destabilizing History in Robert Silverberg’s Roma Eterna
		Introduction
		Alternate History and Determinism
		Prologue: The Failed Exodus
		‘The Reign of Terror’
		Colonialism and Race
		Dialect and Language
		The Great Man Theory of History
		Leonardo and Napoleon
		Christ and Muhammad
		Moses and Marx
		Conclusion
		Notes
	1.4 What if Aristotle Had Known (Better)? Technological Counterfactuals in L. Sprague de Camp’s Short Fiction ‘Aristotle and the Gun’
		Introduction
		Engineers as Civilizing Heroes
		Engineering the Past
		Conclusions: The Closing of a Mastermind
		Notes
Section 2 Narratives of Power in Uchronias: Between ‘Big Men’ and Underrepresented Voices
	2.1 The Triumph of Greek Civilization? Projecting Ancient Greece into an Alternate Future
		Introduction
		Theoretical Frameworks
		Ancient and Modern Contexts
		Power, Politics and Questions of Leadership, Then and Now
		Masculinities, Ancient and Modern
		Conclusion
		Acknowledgements
		Notes
	2.2 Emperor Julian’s American Dream
		Introduction
		Julian the Chrononaut
		Ubi Iulianus, ibi patria : Julian as a Foundational Hero
		From Brick to Marble: Technology at the Service of the Empire
		Is Farneti’s Julian a Fascist?
		Conclusion
		Acknowledgements
		Notes
	2.3 Alternat(iv)e Fiction in T. S. Chaudhry’s The Queen of Sparta: Unrepresented Voices and Counterfactuality
		Introduction
		Readers and Labels
		Academic Definitions and Disagreements
		Outline of The Queen of Sparta
		The Queen of Sparta and Alternative History: Unrepresented Voices
		Ambiguity in the Promotional Materials
		Reader-Reviews and Reader-Knowledge
		Conclusion
		Notes
Section 3 Art, Culture and the Poetics of Counterfactuals
	3.1 ‘A Picture That Can Only Ever Come in Parts’: Alternate Histories of Film in Catherynne M. Valente’s Radiance
		Introduction
		Radiance ’s ‘Radiant Car’: Ancient Microcosms of Alternate Cosmologies; or, Sappho’s Cinematic Science Fiction?
		A ‘Dream of the Solar System’: Mental Moving Images and Other Metaleptic Phantasiai of Fictive Worlds
		An Alternate Ancient Source for Modern Science-Fictional Cosmologies: Valente’s Radianceas Shooting Script for Ovid’s Metamorphoses
		‘Always Already Ruined’ Icons for Alternate Histories: The ‘Statue of Liberty’ and the Shield of Achilles
		A Media Archaeology of Imaginary Ruins: Or,Precessions of Simulacra in Planets , plural, of the Apes
		‘A Universe of Lenses’: The Cinematic Multiverse of Radiance and the Reality of Phantasia , ‘Image in the Mind’s Eye’
		Alternate Histories as Histories of Otherness: Or, ‘a Picture That Can Only Ever Come in Parts’
		Acknowledgement
		Notes
	3.2 How Place Creates Time: Imagined Architecture as an Expression of Identity in Ramona Wheeler’s Three Princes
		Introduction: Once Upon a Place
		Three Princes across Three Continents
		Opera Houses and Bamboo Aircraft s: Monumentality and Technology in Three Princes
		Eternal Egypt: Orientalism and a ‘Third Place’
		Conclusions: Ancient Egypt in Modern Egypt
		Notes
	3.3 Antiquity Interrupted: Partial Receptions as Counterfactuals
		Introduction
		Partial Receptions and Literary Counterfactuals
		What if the Aeneid Ended with Dido’s Death?
		What if Odysseus Never Escaped Ogygia?: Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle
		What if the Oresteia Had No Third Act?: Ferdinando Baldi’s Il Pistolero dell’Ave Maria
		Conclusion
		Notes
References
Index