South Africa, Greece, Rome : classical confrontations / edited by Grant Parker.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Parker, Grant Richard, 1967- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civilization, Classical.

South Africa--Civilization--Classical influences.

South Africa.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxii, 544 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Summary:

How have ancient Greece and Rome intersected with South African histories? This book canvasses architecture, literature, visual arts and historical memory. Some of the most telling manifestations of classical reception in South Africa have been indirect, for example neo-classical architecture or retellings of mythical stories. Far from being the mere handmaiden of colonialism (and later apartheid), classical antiquity has enabled challenges to the South African establishment, and provided a template for making sense of cross-cultural encounters. Though access to classical education has been limited, many South Africans, black and white, have used classical frames of reference and drawn inspiration from the ancient Greeks and Romans. While classical antiquity may seem antithetical to post-apartheid notions of heritage, it deserves to be seen in this light. Museums, historical sites and artworks, up to the present day, reveal juxtapositions in which classical themes are integrated into South African pasts.

Contents:

Prologue

The Azanian muse: classicism in unexpected places / Grant Parker

Conceiving empire

'Poetry in pidgin': notes on the persistence of classicism in the architecture of Johannesburg / Federico Freschi

Cecil John Rhodes, the classics, and imperialism / John Hilton

The 'Mediterranean' cape: reconstructing an ethos / Peter Merrington

Conceiving the nation

'Copy nothing': classical ideals and Afrikaner ideologies at the Voortrekker monument / Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider

Greeks, Romans, and volks-education in the Afrikaner kinderensiklopedie / Philip R. Bosman

Law, virtue and truth-telling

A competing discourse on empire / Jonathan Allen

After Cicero: legal thought from antiquity to the new constitution / Deon H. van Zyl

Cultures of collecting

Museum space and displacement: collecting classical antiquities in South Africa / Samantha Masters

Antique casts for a colonial gallery: the Beit bequest of classical statuary to Cape Town / Anna Tietze

Cecil Rhodes as a reader of the classics: the Groote Schuur Collection / David Wardle

Boundary crossers

'You are people like these Romans were!': D. D. T. Jabavu of Fort Hare / Jo-Marie Claassen

Benjamin Farrington and the science of the swerve / John Atkinson

Athens and apartheid: Mary Renault and classics in South Africa / Nikolai Endres

Antiquity's undertone: classical resonances in the poetry of Douglas Livingstone / Kathleen M. Coleman

After apartheid

Bacchus at Kirstenbosch: reflections of a play director / Roy Sargeant

The reception of the Electra myth in Yael Farber's Molora / Elke Steinmeyer

Classical heritage? : by way of an afterword / Grant Parker.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 29 Sep 2017).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-20643-3

1-108-21453-3

1-108-21588-2

1-108-21723-0

1-108-22398-2

1-316-18141-3

1-108-21858-X