The Epic World

Pamela Lothspeich is Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research centers on the Indian epics in modern literature, theatre, and film.

List of Figures and Tables

List of Contributors

Acknowledgments

Note on Transliteration

Introduction

Part 1. Ways of Reading Epics






A Critical Race Studies Approach: Race and Racecraft in Apollonius’s Argonautica
Jackie Murray




A Postcolonial Studies Approach: From Fanon’s Revolutionary Literature to Glissant’s Relation
Sneharika Roy




An Ecocritical Approach: Early Modern English Epic Possibilities
Chris Barrett




An Affect Studies Approach: Reading Non-Normative Masculinities in Homer’s Iliad
Melissa Mueller




A Network Approach: Tracking Female Power in Seven Epic Narratives
Pádraig MacCarron, Máirín MacCarron, Sílvio Dahmen, Joseph Yose, and Ralph Kenna



Part 2. A Sample of Ancient Iterations (The Beginnings-1000 CE)




The Epic Bible: Authority and Identity in the Face of Adversity
Shawna Dolansky and Sarah Cook




Gilgamesh and Tiamat Abroad: (Mis-)Reading Mesopotamian Epic
Karen Sonik




(Re)Inventing an Epic: Reading the Tamil Cilappatikāram across Time
Morgan J Curtis




Sri Lanka’s Mahāvamòsa, The Great Chronicle
Kristin Scheible




The ‘Epic of the Anglo-Saxons’: The Many Cultural Streams of Beowulf
María José Gómez Calderón




Ecological Colonialism in Vergil’s Aeneid
Laura Zientek



Part 3. "Middle" Period Re-castings and Innovations (1000-1850 CE)




Sunjata Fasa and the Oral Epic Tradition of Mali
Kassim Kone




Kingship and Power in Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan and the Prophetic Königsnovelle
Helen Blatherwick




A Battle of Equals: Rustam and Isfandiar in Illustrated Manuscripts of the Shāhnāma
Behrang Nabavi Nejad




From Oghuz Khan to Exodus: Lineage, Heroism, and Migration in Oghuz Turk Tradition
Ali Aydin Karamustafa




The "Hindu" Epics? Telling the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in Premodern South Asia
Sohini Sarah Pillai




Trickster as Epic Narrator in Malaysia’s Hikayat Hang Tuah
Sylvia Tiwon




Connecting with Ancestors: "Imported" and Indigenous Epics in Southeast Asia
Adrian Vickers



Epic Contestations: What Makes an Epic in Multi-ethnic China?
Mark Bender




Whose Epic is it, Anyway? Gesar and the Myth of National Epic
Natasha Mikles




Ode to Mongolian Heroism: The Oirat Epic Jangar
Chao Gejin




Placation, Memorial, and History in Japan’s The Tale of the Heike and Beyond
Elizabeth Oyler




Guaman Poma’s Epic Letter: A Complex Salvo against Spanish Colonialism in the Andes
Scotti M. Norman




Human Owls and Political Sorcery in the Anales de Cuauhtitlan
Martín Vega Olmedo




An "Epic of Sorts": Gaspar de Villagrá and His Impossible Epic of the New Mexico
Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez




Gender Performance and Gendered Warriors in the Albanian Epic
Anna Di Lellio and Arbnora Dushi




Slavic Oral-Traditional Epic in the Ottoman Ecumene
Robert Romanchuk




Empire and Resistance in South Slavic and Romanian Oral Epic Poetry
Margaret Beissinger



Part 4. New Forms and Foundational Stories (1850-present)




"It Shall be Ruled by Swallows": The Epic of the Zulu King Shaka
Phiwokuhle Mnyandu




Lithoko: Continuity, Change, and the Future of South Sotho Praise Poetry
David M. M. Riep




"Man is the Center": Centripetal Power in the Malagasy Epic Tale of Ibonia
Hallie Wells and Vony Ranalarimanana




Female Leadership and Nation Building: The West African Epics Yennenga and Sarraounia, Mariam Konaté



In Service of Authenticity: Epic in Central Africa under Colonialism
Jonathon Repinecz




"The Return of Rome": Empire, Epic, and Twentieth-Century Italian Imperialism in Africa, Samuel Agbamu



Empire and Resistance in Kazakh Oral Epic: The Case of Sătbek Batyr
Gabriel McGuire




Tolstoy’s War and Peace: National Epic on Page, Stage, and Screen
Julie A. Buckler




Ecocriticism and Indigenous Anti-epics of China
Robin Visser




Anti-epic as National Epic: Uses and Misuses of Epic in Argentina’s Martín Fierro
Nicolás Suárez




To Keep the Sky from Falling: The Epic of Indigenous Environmentalism in Brazil
Tracy Devine Guzmán




An Epic Struggle in Mesoamerican Indigenous Literatures: Recovering Written Forms of Arturo Arias



African/American (Heroic) Epic: Lee’s Do the Right Thing as Critique, Caution, Comedy Gregory E. Rutledge



Epic Sound and Whiteness in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle

Alexander Rothe

Index