Abusing Antiquity?
Classics and the Contemporary Far Right
Abusing Antiquity?
Classics and the Contemporary Far Right
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Description
The first ever collection of essays to explore the contemporary far right's fascination with the classical past, Abusing Antiquity? sheds new light on the ways in which ancient Greece and Rome are being used to legitimize political agendas in the present. Through analyses from contemporary Europe and the US, the volume examines how historical figures, images, events and texts connected with the classical world have been mobilized by the far right to promote extremist views related to race, gender and immigration.
From the rise of mid-20th-century fascism to the modern day, the individual chapters examine evidence ranging from memes and online media to literature, music and visual and material culture. The volume addresses questions of best practice, methodology and ethics when engaging with extremist material, while also providing historical context to the far right's use of classics, and interrogating how the structures within classical studies itself too often provide support for far-right ideologies. Rather than situating classical antiquity as simplistically 'abused' by modern extremist movements, this volume traces Classics' implication and its appropriations in the recent rise of the far-right, thus contributing to more effective methods of countering extremism.
Table of Contents
Notes on Contributors
PART I: Rationales, Methods, and Disciplinary Complicities
Introduction: 'Abusing Antiquity?'
Denise Eileen McCoskey and Helen Roche
Researching Classics and the Online Far Right: Conceptual, Ethical and Methodological Reflections
Helen Roche
'The Product of Twisted Minds'? Institutional and Scholarly Reactions to White Nationalist Classicism in the United States, 2016–2021
Curtis Dozier
PART II: Considering Context: Historical Genealogies
Ku-Klux Klassix: White Supremacy and the Classical Tradition during Reconstruction
Sean Tandy and Benjamin Howland
Political Appropriations of Antiquity: Alain de Benoist, the 'Nouvelle Droite', and Antisemitic Neo-paganism
Marian Nebelin
The Gens Cornelia and Caesarism: Icons of Autocracy
Samuel Agbamu
PART III: Case Studies in Contemporary Politics
'Spartans' in Parliament: Ancient Sparta and the Greek Neo-Nazi Imaginary
Konstantinos Poulis and Helen Roche
Igniting Classical Antiquity: Prometheus and the Techno-Mythologies of the Italian Far Right
Eleftheria Ioannidou and Lorenzo Di Credico
From Eugenics to Genetics: The Role of Ancient DNA in Race Appropriations of Classical Antiquity
Denise Eileen McCoskey
PART IV: The Far Right and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Contemporary Culture
National Socialist Black Metal and the Usurpation of Greece and Rome
Jeremy Swist
What's Sparta Got to Do with It? Masculinity and Ancient Sparta in White Supremacist Spaces Online
Ricarda Meisl and Stephanie Savage
'Who Are the Barbarians Now?' Tacitus' Germania in the Gender Discourse of the Far Right
Teresa Mocharitsch
Anti-Global, Global and Post-Global Classics: Reception of Homer and Classical Scholarship by the Alt-Right
Blaz Zabel
Afterword
Emily Greenwood
Suggested Further Reading
Product details
| Published | Dec 10 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | 9781350563728 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 14 bw illus |
| Dimensions | 234 x 156 mm |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |

























