Empire of Pleasures

Empire of Pleasures PDF

Author: Andrew Dalby

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9780415280730

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An evocative survey of the sensory culture of the Roman Empire, showing how the Romans themselves depicted their food, wine and entertainments in literature and in art.

Body Technologies in the Greco-Roman World

Body Technologies in the Greco-Roman World PDF

Author: Maria Gerolemou

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2023-11-16

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1835536433

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A collection of papers that introduces the notion of the technosoma (techno body) into discussions on the representations of the body in classical antiquity. By applying the category of the technosoma to the ‘natural’ body, this volume explicitly narrows down the discussion of the technical and the natural to the physiological body. In doing so, the present collection focuses on body technologies in the specific form of beautification and body enhancement techniques, as well as medical and surgical treatments. The volume elucidates two main points. Firstly, ancient techno bodies show that the categories of gender and sexuality are at the core of the intersection of the natural and the technical, and intersect with notions of race, age, speciesism, class and education, and dis/ability. Secondly, the collection argues that new body technologies have in fact a very ancient history that can help to address the challenges of contemporary technological innovation. To this end, the volume showcases the intersection of ‘natural’ bodies with technology, gender, sexuality and reproduction. On the one hand, techno bodies tend to align with normative ideas about gender, and sexuality. On the other hand, body modification and/or enhancement techniques work hand in hand with economic and political power and knowledge, thus they often produce techno bodies that are shaped according to individual needs, i.e. according to a certain lifestyle. Consequently, techno bodies threaten to alter traditional ideas of masculinity, femininity, male and female sexuality and beauty.

Latin Elegy and the Space of Empire

Latin Elegy and the Space of Empire PDF

Author: Sara H. Lindheim

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-03

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0198871449

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This book explores the ways in which Latin poets of the late Republic and the Augustan Age participate in a new cultural preoccupation with the dramatically expanding geographical space of empire.

Luxury

Luxury PDF

Author: Peter McNeil

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-05-19

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 019164028X

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We live in a world obsessed by luxury. Long-distance airlines compete to offer first-class sleeping experiences and hotels recommend exclusive suites where you are never disturbed. Luxury is a rapidly changing global industry that makes the headlines daily in our newspapers and on the internet. More than ever, luxury is a pervasive presence in the cultural and economic life of the West - and increasingly too in the emerging super-economies of Asia and Latin America. Yet luxury is hardly a new phenomenon. Today's obsession with luxury brands and services is just one of the many manifestations that luxury has assumed. In the middle ages and the Renaissance, for example, luxury was linked to notions of magnificence and courtly splendour. In the eighteenth century luxury was at the centre of philosophical debates over its role in shaping people's desires and oiling the wheels of commerce. And it continues to morph today, with the growth of the global super-rich and increasing wealth polarization. From palaces to penthouses, from couture fashion to lavish jewellery, from handbags to red wine, from fast cars to easy money, Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello present the first ever global history of luxury, from the Romans to the twenty-first century: a sparkling and ever-changing story of extravagance, excess, novelty, and indulgence.

Roman Love Elegy and the Eros of Empire

Roman Love Elegy and the Eros of Empire PDF

Author: Phebe Lowell Bowditch

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-05-22

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 3031148002

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This book explores Roman love elegy from postcolonial perspectives, arguing that the tropes, conventions, and discourses of the Augustan genre serve to reinforce the imperial identity of its elite, metropolitan audience. Love elegy presents the phenomena and discourses of Roman imperialism—in terms of visual spectacle (the military triumph), literary genre (epic in relation to elegy), material culture (art and luxury goods), and geographic space—as intersecting with ancient norms of gender and sexuality in a way that reinforces Rome’s dominance in the Mediterranean. The introductory chapter lays out the postcolonial frame, drawing from the work of Edward Said among other theorists, and situates love elegy in relation to Roman Hellenism and the varied Roman responses to Greece and its cultural influences. Four of the six subsequent chapters focus on the rhetorical ambivalence that characterizes love elegy’s treatment of Greek influence: the representation of the domina or mistress as simultaneously a figure for ‘captive Greece’ and a trope for Roman imperialism; the motif of the elegiac triumph, with varying figures playing the triumphator, as suggestive of Greco-Roman cultural rivalry; Rome’s competing visions of an Attic and an Asiatic Hellenism. The second and the final chapter focus on the figures of Osiris and Isis, respectively, as emblematic of Rome’s colonialist and ambivalent representation of Egypt, with the conclusion offering a deconstructive reading of elegy’s rhetoric of orientalism.

The Third Realm of Luxury

The Third Realm of Luxury PDF

Author: Joanne Roberts

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-10-31

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1350062782

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In a world that is obsessed with luxury, critical luxury studies is a rapidly emerging field. This is the first book to explore the interplay between the real and imaginary realms of luxury, considering the most significant developments in the theories and practices of luxurious places and spaces over the last fifty years. Providing a critical approach to contemporary interpretations of luxury, the book interrogates the distinction between real places and imaginary spaces. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars, it features a range of case studies which take the reader from the Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge to expressions of sensuality in the 1970s domestic interior, and global conceptions of fine wine and art. The Third Realm of Luxury considers the interplay between luxury and space in both the past and the present, examining the abstract conception of excess and exoticism, as well as the real locations of the home, hotel, apartment, and palace. Full of original research, it is a key contribution to the study of consumption, design, fashion, and architecture.

Luxury and Legitimation

Luxury and Legitimation PDF

Author: Allison Karmel Thomason

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1351921134

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Utilizing a variety of ancient sources, including cuneiform texts, images and archaeological finds, Luxury and Legitimation explores how the collecting of luxury objects contributed to the formation of royal identity in one of the world's oldest civilizations, ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Allison Thomason makes a significant and timely contribution to the subjects of collecting and material culture studies by bringing a new understanding to the political, cultural and social institutions of an important pre-Classical, non-Western civilization.

Romans, Rubbish, and Refuse

Romans, Rubbish, and Refuse PDF

Author: Charlene Alexandria Murphy

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2015-05-31

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 178491116X

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Presents analysis of all the recovered seeds, fruits and cereal remains from the extensive excavations (1995-2006) by the Anglo-American Project in Pompeii (AAPP), providing a unique research opportunity to undertake a diachronic study of urban Roman plant food consumption and discards.