Overview

An analysis of ancient Greek and Roman works alongside contemporary literature, exploring how these classics shape our understanding of the politics of time in America Ancient Greek and Roman cultures have been privileged as authoritatively timeless throughout American history. American leaders capitalize on this privilege when, during periods of crisis, they allude to these cultures to offer relief, to reestablish trust in the status quo, and to promote national unity. Analyzing texts that also draw on ancient Greek and Roman material to respond to these crises, Sasha-Mae Eccleston explains how contemporary authors and artists have questioned calls for unity that homogenize disparate experiences and ignore systemic inequality. Their engagements with the temporalities of the ancient material reveal how time structures membership in the national community. Reading, for example, Seneca's drama Medea, Homer's epics, and the verses of Sappho alongside Jesmyn Ward's novel Salvage the Bones or the poetry of Ocean Vuong and Juliana Spahr, Eccleston examines the temporal politics of major events and everyday life in the United States. Epic Events shows how ancient works that seem to insulate audiences from disaster can actually alert them to the frightening hierarchization of American life. Eccleston skillfully weaves together analyses of ancient material and contemporary texts that range from memorials, visual art, and literature to speeches and public health declarations to bring questions of race, class, and gender into dialogue with time in thoughtful, nuanced, and original ways.

Full Product Details

9780300263411

Table of Contents

Reviews

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"“Epic Events is a powerful meditation on time, memory, and the symbolism of the classical in the U.S. after 9/11. The book is itself epic in its erudite survey of aesthetic forms and traditions, and its remediation of trauma for its readers.”—Patrice Rankine, author of Theater and Crisis: Myth, Memory, and Racial Reckoning in America, 1964-2020 “Sasha-Mae Eccleston forcefully demonstrates the ways modern art and literature responding to events like the Vietnam War and 9/11 have engaged with classical material to interrogate the distribution of power and definitions of belonging in America today.”—Denise Eileen McCoskey, author of Race: Antiquity and Its Legacy   ""Epic Events is a brilliant account of the politics of time that come with appeals to Greek and Roman classics in modern America. Eccleston skillfully analyzes contemporary works to enhance our understanding of the American classical tradition and to tackle hierarchies of citizenship that derive authority from a timeless, homogeneous, classical past.""—Emily Greenwood, Harvard University   "

Author Information

Sasha-Mae Eccleston is the John Rowe Workman Assistant Professor of Classics at Brown University. Her many honors include the 2021 NEH/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize in Ancient Studies. She is cofounder of both Racing the Classics and Eos and directs the Postdoctoral/Post-MFA Fellowships in Critical Classical Studies. Eccleston lives in Providence, RI.

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