'The Trouble with Xenophon: Marching with the Ten Thousand in twenty-first century fiction' with Dr Fiona Hobden (University of Liverpool)
5:00pm - 6:00pm /
Tuesday 20th February 2018
- Dr Alexei Zadorozhny
- Admission: Free.
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Location: Walbank Seminar Room, 12 Abercromby Square, University of Liverpool
This talk examines the reception of Xenophon’s Anabasis in twenty-first century popular fiction, focusing on two historical novels, The Ten Thousand (2001) by Michael Curtis Ford and The Lost Army (2008) by Valerio Massimo Manfred, a fantasy adaptation, The Ten Thousand (2008) by Paul Kearney, and the science fiction series Star Legions by Michael G. Thomas (2011-15).
Within the bounds of their individual genres, each novel engages intensely with the Anabasis story, and with its hero, Xenophon himself. However, while this engagement is productive, the outlook is not always straightforwardly positive. Across the board, war is an arena in which to prove oneself, but the wider presentation of war and its impacts unsettle this normative proposal. The character of Xenophon is key to this. Decentred from all four narratives and trapped in the role of leader in a gruelling campaign, he and his cognate characters variously embrace extreme violence, lose their passion and abandon their dreams, and reject war outright.
With varying degrees of reflection and critique, these Anabases present a hero who is troubled and/or troubling: whose thoughts, actions, attitudes and relationships illustrate tensions and ambivalences around the execution of war in contemporary Western democracies, by perpetuating and undermining hegemonic discourses familiar to the militainment industry in a post 9-11 world.
This talk examines the reception of Xenophon’s Anabasis in twenty-first century popular fiction, focusing on two historical novels, The Ten Thousand (2001) by Michael Curtis Ford and The Lost Army (2008) by Valerio Massimo Manfred, a fantasy adaptation, The Ten Thousand (2008) by Paul Kearney, and the science fiction series Star Legions by Michael G. Thomas (2011-15).
Within the bounds of their individual genres, each novel engages intensely with the Anabasis story, and with its hero, Xenophon himself. However, while this engagement is productive, the outlook is not always straightforwardly positive. Across the board, war is an arena in which to prove oneself, but the wider presentation of war and its impacts unsettle this normative proposal. The character of Xenophon is key to this. Decentred from all four narratives and trapped in the role of leader in a gruelling campaign, he and his cognate characters variously embrace extreme violence, lose their passion and abandon their dreams, and reject war outright.
With varying degrees of reflection and critique, these Anabases present a hero who is troubled and/or troubling: whose thoughts, actions, attitudes and relationships illustrate tensions and ambivalences around the execution of war in contemporary Western democracies, by perpetuating and undermining hegemonic discourses familiar to the militainment industry in a post 9-11 world.