Imperial Projections

"An excellent collection of essays... Among the best are Nicholas J. Cull's exploration of Carry On Cleo and its brilliant send up of the epic Cleopatra... and Margaret Malamud's careful look at the Broadway and cinema version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum... The outstanding contribution to Imperial Projections is, however, Sandra Joshel's essay on I, Claudius."

"This volume aids and abets a reader's own meditation on the empires of Britain, America, and Hollywood, and the ways in which the Roman empire has been an abiding vehicle for simultaneously manifesting, indulging, interrogating, and critiquing the ambitions of these more recent empires."

"Imperial Projections is a terrific book. It successfully merges modern cultural critique with sound classical scholarship, and does so in a manner that is enjoyable to read and intellectually challenging."

"An insightful exploration into how Imperial Rome, in its various popular guises, has provided a malleable and commercially viable mythos that has found special receptivity in modern America."

"This engaging volume capitalizes on contemporary interest in the decadence and excess that characterizes Rome in the modern, as indeed in the ancient, imagination... Read it and enjoy!"

"An excellent example of what might be called the allegorical mode of cinematic interpretation, in which movies are understood as texts about the cultures that make and consume them."

"Imperial Projections provides some intriguing new perspectives on such pop culture representations of Rome and the Romans."

"This book makes an important contribution to popular culture and classics at the same time. It seems to me that this is cultural studies at its best, most informative, and most original. This is a very serious, yet entertaining and provocative book."