Representations of Antiquity in Film

Kevin M. McGeough is professor of archaeology in the Department of Geography at the University of Lethbridge and holds a Board of Governor’s Research Chair in Archaeological Theory and Reception. Having excavated in Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Canada, he is the co-editor of the Alberta Archaeological Review and chair of publications for the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR). He is currently researching the reception of Near Eastern Archaeology in a variety of media and has recently published a three-volume book on archaeological reception in the Victorian era, The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century (2015).

• Introduction. The Importance of Popular CultureChapter 1. Film as History and History as Hyperreality Chapter 2. Epic Egyptian Kitsch: Historical Thinking and Statecraft in the Cinematic Ancient World Chapter 3. Nero the Nazi and Akhenaten the Lutheran: The Presentism of the Ancient World on Film Chapter 4. Evil Seductresses, Feisty Housewives, and the Temptation of Victor Mature Chapter 5. The Judean People’s Front and Jesus’s Mod Tour Bus: Musicals and Comedies Set in the Ancient WorldChapter 6. From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse: The Ancient Epic Subverted Chapter 7. Gods, Monsters, and Musclemen Chapter 8. Cavegirls and the Upper Paleolithic Fur Bikini Chapter 9. The New Epic: Ultraviolence, Comic Books, and CGI Chapter 10. Conclusions