Title of the work
Country of the First Edition
Country/countries of popularity
Original Language
First Edition Date
First Edition Details
Be Curious Festival, University of Leeds, March 30, 2019.
Official Website
herculesproject.leeds.ac.uk (accessed: August 12, 2020).
Available Onllne
herculesproject.leeds.ac.uk (accessed: August 12, 2020).
Target Audience
Crossover
Cover
We are still trying to obtain permission for posting the original cover.
Author of the Entry:
Susan Deacy, University of Roehampton, s.deacy@roehampton,ac,uk
Peer-reviewer of the Entry:
Elżbieta Olechowska, University of Warsaw, elzbieta.olechowska@gmail.com
Daniel A. Nkemleke, University of Yaounde 1, nkemlekedan@yahoo.com
The Hercules Project
The Hercules Project is a University of Leeds-based project, tracing post-classical, mostly Western, receptions of Herakles-Hercules. One stimulus for the Project was the discovery by its Principal Investigator, Professor Emma Stafford, of the richness and range of uses of Hercules since Antiquity while writing an overview of the subject’s postclassical ‘afterlives’ for her book Herakles in the Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World series (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012). The project has brought together academics from various disciplines for a series of conferences and books. There has also been a focus on public engagement events including a musical drama on the Choice of Hercules and an exhibition on the Labours of Hercules.
Sources:
Official website (accessed: August 12, 2020).
Prepared by Susan Deacy, University of Roehampton, s.deacy@roehampton,ac,uk
Emma Stafford (Author)
Emma Stafford is a British academic whose areas of expertise include ancient Greek culture and religion in the postclassical reception of Herakles/Hercules. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Classics in 1990 and moved to the University of London for her PhD, writing her thesis on personified abstractions in ancient Greek religion and culture. She has worked at the University of Leeds since 2000 and became Professor of Greek Culture in 2020. Her many books and articles include Herakles in the Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World series (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012).
Sources:
ahc.leeds.ac.uk (accessed: August 12, 2020).
Bio prepared by Susan Deacy, University of Roehampton, s.deacy@roehampton,ac,uk
Summary
This webpage concerns a family-friendly exhibition, organised by the University of Leeds-based Hercules Project as part of the University’s 2019 public engagement "Be Curious" festival. The exhibition presented representations of the Labours of Hercules in ancient and postclassical art, culminating in recent appropriations of the hero as a coloniser and a world leader. After looking at how others have depicted Hercules, visitors were invited to become creators of their own receptions by drawing a picture of Hercules tackling a modern issue on a postcard. The resulting postcards showed Herakles vying with issues including climate change, corruption and politics and – above all – Brexit.
Analysis
This event speaks to the appeal of Hercules in children’s culture which, while stretching back centuries, has taken on new resonance since the 1990s in the wake of Disney’s Hercules (Maurice 2019). The event exemplifies the ongoing adaptability of the figure of Hercules, for both adults and children. For example, on postcards created both by adults and by children, Heracles is made to stand variously for "Remain" and for "Leave" in the Brexit debate. On one striking example, created by a ten-year-old participant, Hercules is battling a six-headed Hydra whose heads spell out B-R-E-X-I-T (accessed: August 14, 2020).
This event exemplifies the pedagogic potential of Hercules and the ongoing potential for the Labours of Hercules to be adapted in fresh ways in response to contemporary concerns. In this regard, the exhibition is in a line of explorations – since antiquity – where the figure of Hercules has been recast in relation to particular scenarios, often politically-charged ones (see notably Blanshard 2005, Stafford 2012), as where Vladimir Putin is shown facing a set of opponents including the “Hydra” of EU, US, Canadian and Japanese sanctions (Rosenberg 2014).
Further Reading
Blanshard, Alistair, Hercules: A Heroic Life, London: Granta, 2005.
Maurice, Lisa, "From Elitism to Democratisation: A Half-Century of Hercules in Children’s Literature", Journal of Historical Fictions 2.2 (2019) 81–101.
historicalfictionsjournal.org (accessed: March 17, 2020).
Rosenberg, Steve, “In pictures: The 12 Labours of... Putin”, available at bbc.com (accessed: July 23 2020).
Stafford, Emma, Hercules, Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.
Addenda
Genre: Webpage for public engagement event
