Book cover of Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths

Book description

A witty, inspiring reckoning with the ancient Greek and Roman myths and their legacy, from what they can illuminate about #MeToo to the radical imagery of Beyonce.

The picture of classical antiquity most of us learned in school is framed in certain ways -- glossing over misogyny while omitting the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Antigone Rising as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Thoughtful, personal, passionate, insightful, and humane. This is the book I wish I could write.

Helen Morales puts a pin in the lazy “glory that was Greece” trope and gives us the darker side of antiquity and its influence, showing us how stories have been used to enslave bodies and tame minds, to belittle and exclude. But this plasticity is what also makes Greek myth a potentially restorative force.

Helen’s message is that such capacity for continual reinvention gives the ultimate power to the teller of tales, whoever she might be.    

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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