Categories
Books

Orientalism and the Reception of Powerful Women

Carlà-Uhink, Filippo & Anja Wieber (eds.). 2020. Orientalism and the reception of powerful women from the ancient world. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

This volume investigates how ancient women, and particularly powerful women, such as queens and empresses, have been re-imagined in Western (and not only Western) arts; highlights how this re-imagination and re-visualization is, more often than not, the product of Orientalist stereotypes – even when dealing with women who had nothing to do with Eastern regions; and compares these images with examples of Eastern gaze on the same women. Through the chapters in this volume, readers will discover the similarities and differences in the ways in which women in power were and still are described and decried by their opponents.

Table of contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments

  1. Introduction Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Potsdam University, Germany & Anja Wieber, Independent Scholar, Germany
  2. Semiramide in India. The Reception of an Ancient Oriental Warrior Queen in Baroque Opera Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Universität Kassel, Germany
  3. Carian Queens from the Orient to Greece and Back: The Reception of Artemisia I and Artemisia II Irene Berti, Independent Scholar, Germany
  4. The Persian Boy, the Bactrian Girl and the Man from Macedon – Gender and Orientalisms in Mary Renault’s Alexander the Great-Trilogy Ann-Cathrin Harders, Universität Bielefeld, Germany
  5. Drypetis in Fact and (Fan) Fiction Sabine Müller, Universität Marburg, Germany
  6. Exotic, Erotic, Heroic? Women of Carthage in Western Imagination Marta Garia Morcillo, University of Roehampton, UK
  7. In the Name of Cleopatra: Emma Hamilton and Catherine Stepney Make Their Mark Mary Hamer, Kipling Society, UK
  8. Colon(ial)izing Fulvia: (Re)Presenting the Military Woman in History, Fiction, and Art Peter Keegan, Macquarie University, Australia
  9. The Oriental Empresses of Rome. Severan Women in Literature and the Performative Arts Martijn Icks, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  10. The Palmyrene Queen Zenobia in Syrian TV – Inverting Orientalism for Modern Nationhood? Anja Wieber, Independent Scholar, Germany
  11. The Dark Gaze of Galla Placidia, Christopher Bishop, Australian National University, Australia
  12. Theodora A.P. (After Procopius) / Theodora A.S. (After Sardou): Metamorphoses of an Empress Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Potsdam University, Germany
  13. From Historical Enigma to Modern Role Model: The Reception of Sasanid Queen Širin in Contemporary Iranian Cinema Irene Madreiter, Universität Innsbruck, Austria
  14. Instead of a Conclusion: Gynaecocracy in the Orient, Oriental Seclusion in the Occident Beate Wagner-Hasel, Universität Hannover, Germany

Notes
Bibliography
Index