For more than 3,000 years the Amazons have been a recognised symbol in myth and history, text and image. The contributions in this volume focus in on how this symbolism has shaped and been shaped through the lens of classical reception. From Wonder Woman to the Ukraine War, in genres as varied as videogames and documentary film, the diversity and power of the Amazonian image is notable. Over time they have become paradigms for the defence of women in a global society and icons of feminism and LGBTQIA+.
Divided into three parts, this book considers how the Amazon image has at different times and in different contexts been marginalised, put on a pedestal and globalised. For the first time case studies are taken from across media and lived history to compare and contrast modern frameworks with each other and with the ‘original’ Amazon iconography. What emerges is a concept of ‘the Amazon’ as a modern paradigm that speaks as strongly to today’s diverse society as it did to the ancients.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Introduction. Viral Amazons: The first Influencers in History, Arturo Sanchez Sanz (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
Part One: Marginalisation and Hypersexualisation
1. Amazon Creation Across Female and Male Centred Texts, Connie Skibinski (Newcastle University, Australia) and Anneka Rene (Auckland University, New Zealand)
2. The Sexual Katabasis of a 90s Amazon: Sex-Positivity and the Male Gaze in Artemis: Requiem (1996), Carly Maris (Wilmington College, USA)
3. Where are the Amazons? Absences and Othering of Female and Feminine Agency in Audiovisual Adaptations of the Trojan War Narrative, Christine Lehnen (University of Manchester, UK)
4. The Myth of the Amazons is Always in Fashion, Giulia Corrente (Universita degli studi Roma Tre, Italy)
5. Controllers and Chainmail: Amazon' Costuming in Contemporary Video Games, Freya Fenton (University of Leicester, UK)
6. Artbook Muses: Hypersexualised Amazons through the Francophone bande dessiné, Arturo Sanchez Sanz (Isabel I de Castilla University and Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
Part Two: Heroic Warrior Women
7. Playing the Amazons and Warrior Women in Tabletop Games, Amy Norgard (Truman State University, USA)
8. Wonder Women: Searching for Amazons in Myth, Archaeology and Contemporary Media, Martine Diepenbroek (Johannesburg University, South Africa)
9. The Coloniality of Power in the Reception of the Amazons in the Brazilian Wonder Woman, Carlos Eduardo da Costa Campos (Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil) and Luis Filipe Bantim de Assumpção (University of Vassouras, Brazil)
10. Native American Amazons: Indigenizing Wonder Woman and Beyond, Kendall Lovely (University of California Santa Barbara, USA)
11. Amazons in Wonderland: The Persistence of Memory in Dalí's Dreams, Arturo Sanchez Sanz (Isabel I de Castilla University and Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
12. Surviving a World of Men: Indigenous African Resistance and the Legacy of Amazonian Reception in The Woman King (2022), Natalie Swain (University of Winnipeg, Canada) and Evelyn N. Mayanja (Carleton University, Canada)
Part Three: LGBTQIA+ and Feminist Icons
13. 'Badass Babes' in Pop Culture - A New Embodiment?, Kay Buttfield (University of the Sunshine Coast and University of Tasmania, Australia)
14. The Documentary Genre as a Social Shaper: The Representation of Amazon Women as Feminist Icons in Contemporary Documentary Films, Almudena Muñoz Gallego (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
15. "Amazons" for War and Peace: XXI Centuries Movements for Women's Rights in Ukraine, Arturo Sanchez Sanz (Isabel I de Castilla University and Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
16. The New Ukrainian Amazons: Fighting From Herakles to Putin, Arturo Sanchez Sanz (Isabel I de Castilla University and Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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