THE USE OF MEMETICS IN THE CLASSICAL RECEPTION STUDIES IN AMERICAN PRESS AT THE TURN OF THE 19THAND 20TH CENTURIES
Keywords:
American history, memetics, meme, mass media, reception of antiquityAbstract
Antiquity, which once inspired the Founding Fathers and later became an important reference point for many subsequent generations of American politicians, has lost its former significance. Many researchers traditionally associate this process with the industrialization at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, when society placed more emphasis on practical knowledge and skills. It would be logical to anticipate a gradual decrease in the number of references to Ancient Greek and Roman history featured in the publications of the emerging mass press focused on the needs of a wide audience and consisting of short and catchy notes. However, there was an upsurge of interest in antiquity in American newspapers. Unfortunately, researchers of classical reception usually pay little attention to periodicals. Using the memetic approach, the article attempts to resolve this contradiction. In addition, the survey analyzes which particular classical subjects were interesting to the readers of mass press, and considers possible options for interpreting and rethinking some ancient history’s images. Through a range of public issues, as well as events and characters of ancient history, the article examines two subjects in detail: the fall of Rome and Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.References
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References
Allerfeldt, K. (2008), “Rome, Race, and the Republic: Progressive America and the Fall of the Roman Empire, 1890–1920”, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, vol. 7, № 3, pp. 297–323.
Allerfeldt, K. (2009), “Two Wars, Rome and America”, Comparative Civilizations Review, vol. 60, № 60, pp. 99–119.
Baldasty, G.J. (1992), The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, USA, 227 p.
Benitez-Bribiesca L. (2001), “Memetics: A Dangerous Idea”, Interciecia, vol. 26, № 1, pp. 29–31.
Blackmore, S. (1999), The Meme Machine, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 264 p.
Brodie, R. (2004), Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme, Integral Press, Carlsbad, USA, 251 p.
Campbell, W.J. (2006), The Year that Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms, Routledge, New York, USA, 340 p.
Dawkins, R. (1989), The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 352 p.
Distin, K. (2005), The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 231 p.
Hofstadter, D. (1985), “On Viral Sentences and Self-Replicating Structures”, Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern, Basic Books, New York, USA, pp. 49–70.
Malamud, M. (2009), Ancient Rome and Modern America, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, USA, 312 p.
McGerr, M.E. (1988), The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865–1928, Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 322 p.
McGrath, A.E. (2004), Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, Wiley-Blackwell, New Jersey, USA, 208 p.
Meckler, M. (2006), “The Rise of Populism the Decline of Classical Education and the Seventeenth Amendment”, in Meckler, M. (ed.), Classical Antiquity and the Politics of America. From George Washington to George W. Bush, Baylor University Press, Waco, USA, pp. 69–82.
Richard, С.J. (2009), The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and the Antebellum United States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, USA, 272 p.
Shalev, E. (2009), Rome Reborn on Western Shores: Historical Imagination and the Creation of the American Republic, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, USA, 328 p.
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983), Merriam-Webster+ Inc, Springfield, USA, 1563 p.
Winterer, C. (2004), The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780–1910, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA, 256 p.
Winterer, C. (2006), “Classical Oratory and Fears of Demagoguery in the Antebellum Era”, in Meckler, M. (ed.), Classical Antiquity and the Politics of America. From George Washington to George W. Bush, Baylor University Press, Waco, USA, pp. 29–40.
