New monograph out now, 'Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity'
Dear List Members,
I hope that you will tolerate the shameless promotion of my recently published monograph. Hopefully, this interdisciplinary study will be of interest to scholars of cultural geography, anthropology, tourism and heritage, and visual and reception studies"
Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity: The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis in the modern imagination (London: Bloomsbury, 2022).
"Turning to a region of South Italy associated with the heritage of Greater Greece and the geographies of Homers Odyssey, Marco Benot Carbone delivers a historical and ethnographic treatment of how places defined in public imagination and media by force of their associated historical events become sites of memory and identity, as their landscape, heritage, and mythologies turn into insignia of a romanticised antiquity.
For the ancient Greeks, Homer had set the marine monsters of the Odyssey in the Strait between Calabria and Sicily. Since then, this Mediterranean passage has been glowing with the literary aura of its mythological landmarks. Travellers and tourists have played Odysseus by re-enacting his journey. Scholars and explorers have explained the myths as metaphors of whirlpools and marine fauna. The iconic Strait and village of Scilla have turned into chronotopic place-myths and playgrounds, defined by their literary aura and the regions ancient heritage, inspiring representations in media, travels, and tourism.
Carbone observes the enduring impact of Hellas on the real Strait today. The fascinations of artists and travellers, and their continuous rekindling of cultural and visual traditions of place have intersected with philhellenic Western historiographies, shaping local policies, public histories, views of development and tourism, and forms of Hellenicist identitarianism. Elements of society have celebrated the landscape of the Odyssey, appropriated Homer as their imagined heirs and fellow citizen, and even purported themselves as the original Europeans, pandering to outdated ideological appropriations of classical antiquity and exclusionary, West-centric views of the Mediterranean.
From the links below, you can access or download the Introduction of the book and an excerpt on the Bronze Warriors retrieved from the sea of Riace fifty years ago:
http://www.marcobenoit.net/geographies-of-myth-and-places-of-identity/
https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/geographies-of-myth-and-places-of-identity-9781 350118195/ [https://res.cloudinary.com/bloomsbury-atlas/image/upload/w_360,c_scale/jacke ts/9781350118195.jpg] Geographies of Myth and Places of Identity - Bloomsbury This text is an exciting entry in the study of ancient Greece and antiquities. The author skillfully weaves historical analyses of Greece, Homer's Odyssey, and ancient mythology with ethnographic considerations of the contemporary Strait of Messina.A welcomed and necessary study of the significance of ancient Greek mythology in the contemporary world. www.bloomsbury.com
Happy to hear any feedback / provide extra info. Many thanks for your attention, Marco
Dr Marco-Benot Carbone (he/him/his), PhD UCL, FHEA UK
Lecturer Intercultural Studies & Research Lead for Digital Arts
Brunel University London - College of Business, Arts, and Social Sciences
www.brunel.ac.uk, marcobenoit.carbone@brunel.ac.uk
Receiving Hours: Mon & Wed, 2-3 pm
Editorial Board Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies
Current Research Project: Across the Channel. Italians in the UK after Brexit
CfP Out Now: Italys Souths and Islands in Film, Media and Visual Cultures', JICMS
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