Home - CSTS 222 - Creating Classics: A Visual Workshop on Pasolini & Greek Drama (Shirazi, Fall '25)

Pasolini visits Gramsci's tomb (circa 1970)
via Wikimedia Commons

Books excerpted in your class

Some of your course readings are excerpts from these books. If you found those excerpts helpful, it may be worth looking at the books they are drawn from.

If these books are already on loan to someone, you can still request another copy from libraries beyond the Trico. Use the Tripod links below, or see the "Borrow Beyond Trico" box to the left of this page.

Liquid Antiquity by Brooke Holmes (ed.)
ISBN: 9782839920674

Publication Date: 2017-05-23

Neither an academic textbook nor an art book, but a unique platform that explores the intersection between contemporary art and antiquity in a fluid stream of images, ideas, and voices from across 2500 years.
Heretical Aesthetics: Pasolini on Painting by Pier Paolo Pasolini; Giammei and Marjian (eds.)
ISBN: 9781804291283

Publication Date: 2023-08-01

A collection of numerous texts previously available only in Italian, each accompanied by an editorial note elucidating its place in the tumultuous context of post-war Italian culture.
The Play of Space by Rush Rehm
ISBN: 9781282271364

Publication Date: 2009-01-01

Classicist-director Rush Rehm offers a strikingly original approach to the spatial parameters of Greek tragedy as performed in the open-air theater of Dionysus, arguing that it be viewed in its ecological context and interplay with the environment.

Background and Literature Reviews

Literature reviews - Oxford Bibliographies

These are a few examples of Oxford Bibliographies that may be useful for you. These are expert-curated reading and resource lists relevant to certain topic areas. You can think of them as a kind of annotated bibliography.

Search through Oxford Bibliographies or browse through specific sections (e.g., Cinema and Media Studies or Classics) to discover others which may be even more relevant for your interests.

Oxford Bibliographies Online
Includes introductions to each topic area, guides to introductory works, textbooks, guidebooks, journals, reference works etc., and links to useful websites. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable.

Pier Paolo Pasolini
Many sections will be of interest, but perhaps especially the "Mythology and Neocapitalism" section. Published 2020.
Classics and Cinema
Many resources included here on Greek tragedies and their adaptation into or influence on film. Published 2020.
Film Theory
Contains both more general theoretical resources and sections devoted to Critical Race Theory, Postcolonialism, and psychological and philosophical approaches. Published 2011.
Queer Theory
From the Cinema and Media Studies bibliography collection, so focused on queer theory as it relates to film. Published 2013.
Sophocles' Oedipus the King
An example of a bibliography providing background and traditional scholarship on one of the original plays. Published 2017.

Searching the Oxford Bibliographies database will return similar articles devoted to Medea, the Oresteia, etc.

Reference and background material

Below are relevant encyclopedias and then volumes of essays which are meant to both argue a thesis but also survey the scholarly literature and major positions or views on a given topic.

Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece & Rome
Offers a comprehensive overview of the literature, history, archaeology, art, philosophy, science, and religion of the Greek and Roman world from the Bronze Age to the fifth century CE. It also covers the legacy of the classical world and its interpretation and influence in subsequent centuries.

A Companion to Aeschylus by Jacques A. Bromberg (Editor); Peter Burian (Editor)
ISBN: 9781405188043

Publication Date: 2023-03-20

This book explores Aeschylean drama, and its theatrical, historical, philosophical, religious, and socio-political contexts, as well as the receptions and influence of Aeschylus from antiquity to the present day.
A Companion to Greek Tragedy by Justina Gregory (Editor)
ISBN: 9781280285912

Publication Date: 2008-01-01

"The Blackwell Companion to Greek Tragedy" provides readers with a fundamental grounding in Greek tragedy, and also introduces them to the various methodologies and the lively critical dialogue that characterize the study of Greek tragedy today. Contains a generous bibliography.
The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre by Marianne McDonald (Editor); Michael Walton (Editor)
ISBN: 1139001507

Publication Date: 2009-01-28

This series of essays by prominent academics and practitioners investigates in detail the history of performance in the classical Greek and Roman world.
Brill's Companion to the Reception of Aeschylus by Rebecca Futo Kennedy (Editor)
ISBN: 9789004249325

Publication Date: 2017-10-05

See especially Chapter 18, "Orestes On Trial in Africa: Pasolini's Appunti per un' Orestiade Africana and Sissako's Bamako."
Brill's Companion to Euripides (2 Vols) by Andreas Markantonatos (Editor)
ISBN: 9789004269705

Publication Date: 2020-09-03

Many may be of interest, but see of course Chapter 4, on Medea.
A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama by Betine van Zyl Smit (Editor)
ISBN: 9781118347751

Publication Date: 2016-05-23

A series of original essays that represent a comprehensive overview of the global reception of ancient Greek tragedies and comedies from antiquity to the present day.
Looking at Greek Drama by David Stuttard (Editor)
ISBN: 9781350320895

Publication Date: 2024-12-12

Overview of Greek drama from its origins to its later reception, including chapters on authors and dramas in their social and religious context as well as key aspects such as structure, character, staging and music.
Dialogues with the Past: Classical Reception Theory and Practice - Volume 1 and 2 (BICS Supplement 126 -16. 2) by Anastasia Bakogianni (Editor)
ISBN: 9781905670543

Publication Date: 2013-12-09

2 volumes.

Loeb Classical Library
Should you need access to any primary texts. Provides access to a broad range of Greek and Latin literature, with facing English translation.

Finding Relevant Books in the Library Catalog

Tripod Library Catalog
- Use Tripod to find resources available from the TriCo Libraries.
- Search for books, e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more

Find books by subject terms (categories)

Highly recommended that you try searching by subject or subject terms in Tripod, the library's overarching database for all its materials.

When you find a book in your area of interest, it will oftentimes be linked by categories to other books about similar subject matter.

You can locate these category links, or subject/subject terms, by clicking on a book you find in search, or one of the direct Tripod links to one of the books listed here (or your course texts above). Scroll down the details about the book and find a line labeled Subject.

Clicking on this will run a search for all books which are tagged with the same term(s).

The subject field is circled in red in this example:

Examples from the Pasolini subject search

The books below are drawn from a subject search like this for Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 1922-1975 (click to run the search in Tripod):

Pasolini's Bodies and Places by Michele Mancini
ISBN: 9783906803418

Publication Date: 2017-09-01

A compilation of quoted images with texts by Pasolini describing his own research on bodies and places for his films. Translated from the Italian.
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Framed and Unframed: A Thinker for the Twenty-First Century by Luca Peretti (Editor); Karen T. Raizen (Editor)
ISBN: 9781501328893

Publication Date: 2018-12-13

A cross-disciplinary volume which explores and complicates our understanding of Pasolini today, probing notions of otherness in his works, his media image, and his legacy.
Pier Paolo Pasolini by Gian Maria Annovi
ISBN: 9780231180306

Publication Date: 2017-02-14

Revisits Pasolini's oeuvre to examine the author's performance as a way of assuming an antagonistic stance toward forms of artistic, social, and cultural oppression.
Sex, the Self, and the Sacred by Colleen Ryan-Scheutz
ISBN: 9781442684775

Publication Date: 2017-09-11

Explores the ways in which Pasolini's representations of women reveal his concerns about the corruption of modern society.
Against the Avant-Garde by Ara H. Merjian
ISBN: 9780226655277

Publication Date: 2020-07-15

Demonstrates how Pasolini's campaign against neocapitalist culture fueled his hostility to the avant-garde. Examines case studies from the 1960s and 1970s, concluding with a reflection on Pasolini's far-reaching influence on post-1970s art.

Titles from an example search on cinema and literature

These were returned by a subject search for Motion pictures and literature, then further specified with a keyword search for classic* OR greek.

Cinema and Classical Texts by Martin M. Winkler
ISBN: 9780511575723

Publication Date: 2009-08-18

This book interprets films as visual texts and provides the first systematic theoretical and practical demonstration of the affinities between Greco-Roman literature and the cinema.
Classical Literature on Screen by Martin M. Winkler
ISBN: 9781108123358

Publication Date: 2017-09-12

Examines screen adaptations of classical epic, tragedy, comedy, myth, and history, exploring, for example, how ancient rhetorical principles regarding the emotions apply to moving images and how Aristotle's perspective on thrilling plot-turns can recur on screen. Includes specific material on Pasolini's approaches to the classics.

Databases: Find Scholarly Articles and Books

Année Philologique
Annèe Philologique is useful for researchers in the classics, philosophy, history, art, archaeology, and the humanities. It contains publication information for articles for the years 1924 to the present.
JSTOR
Access to millions of journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in most academic disciplines. For journals, coverage is from first issue through three to five years ago.
ProQuest Performing Arts Database‎
This database, formerly known as "International Index to the Performing Arts" provides abstracts and full-text to journal articles. Covers a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry including dance, film, television, theater, opera, and broadcasting. Covers 1864-present.
MLA International Bibliography
Database of scholarly books and articles related to literature, language, linguistics, film, theater and folklore. Includes scholarship from 1926 to the present.
ATLA Religion Database + ATLA Serials (American Theological Library Association)
Provides online access to the entire core collection of more than fifty significant scholarly journals in the field of religion. Also provides citation information for journal articles, book reviews and essays for over 600 journals in the fields of religion and theology. Covers 1949-present.