Living and Dying in the Roman Republic

This volume deals with the American production Spartacus. In the discussion of the present, a turn to Greek or Roman antiquity can be observed again and again. To find there the roots of Western society for politics, economics or philosophy, or to derive comparative arguments for expansionist efforts or decline, is not just part of the rhetorical commonplace. From a media cultural studies and media ethics perspective, specific ways of looking at responsibility, the transmission of values, loyalty, education, self-discipline, and religion can be identified in TV series, which can be evaluated as self-statements of the present or the producers.



The content


The historical Spartacus and the medial Spartacus.- The series Spartacus.- Entertainment in the Roman Republic and in the series.- Identity, persona and questions of recognition.- Body enactments and corporeality.- Everyday use of violence and experience of violence.- Composed copulatory settings: sex, eroticism and love.- Understanding of freedom and freedom as conflict.- "Fuck the Gods: morality, religion and religiosity.- Experience and experiential eroticism. Composed copulatory settings: sex, eroticism, and love.- Understandings of freedom and freedom as conflict.- "Fuck the Gods": morality, religion, and religiosity.- Experience and experiential extremism.- The myth and Spartacus - the myth of Spartacus.- Media and history.




The target groups


Lecturers and students of media and communication studies, cultural studies and film studies




The author

Dr. Thomas Wilke is Professor of Cultural Education at the Ludwigsburg University of Education.

This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.