Caesar in the USA: Popular Culture, Classical Reception, American Identity

凯撒大帝可以说是其中最著名的古典人物。他与西方文明史上从共和国到帝国的一个急剧转折点联系在一起，他很快就占据了不朽的、近乎神话的地位。特别是在美国的历史和文化中，凯撒无处不在。从一开始，他就把英国国王妖魔化为暴君，而到了21世纪初，他又把美国总统奉为将军、魅力领袖和强硬的帝国主义者。这个项目从凯撒在新世界开始，当时对英国统治的抵抗变成了革命，一个新的国家建立了。罗马独裁者在美国民族认同的形成以及从18世纪晚期一直到19世纪流传的爱国主义和叛国罪的话语中发挥了重要作用。凯撒在那里，政治家、军事历史学家和记者谈论革命、民族主义、宪法的建立、总统权力的集中、内战、帝国或政治暗杀。从这个起点出发，通过从二十世纪到二十一世纪的一系列详细案例研究，我分析了凯撒在美国的接受情况，将其作为古罗马历史、古代文化的接受、高级和流行文化以及美国社会和政治历史之间的一系列有趣的交叉点。这些案例研究将展示凯撒如何成为美国文化中的丰富资源，通过它来支持或挑战革命、独裁、军事力量、帝国主义和政治暗杀，并且从更个人的角度来看，促进公共美德（如领导力和冒险精神），激发私人恶习（特别是奢侈品和赌博），塑造挑衅性的种族身份(“凯撒”相关的，例如，意大利人和非裔美国人的身份)，或者娱乐。通过对恺撒在美国接受情况的考察，本研究项目还旨在探讨经典作品本身的现代接受；展示古典接受与国家和个人认同问题的交集；并质疑高雅文化和流行文化之间的关系。这本专著将是美国文化中恺撒这个人（而不是莎士比亚的戏剧）的第一部长篇研究。它旨在增进人们对凯撒对西方文化的重要性以及古罗马对现代美国的重要性的理解。它还着手探索古代现代接受的特殊性，以及古代在国家和个人身份形成中的地位。

Julius Caesar is arguably the most famous classical figure of them all. Associated with a sharp turning point in the history of western civilization from republic to empire, he quickly took on monumental, quasi-mythic proportions. In the history and culture of the United States of America, in particular, Caesar is ubiquitous. Deployed at the outset to demonize the British king as tyrant, he surfaces at the start of the twenty-first century to lionize the American president as general, charismatic leader, and tough imperialist. This project begins with Caesar in the New World at the point when resistance to British rule turns into revolution and a new nation is founded. The Roman dictator has had an important function in the formation of American national identity and in the discourses of patriotism and of treason which circulated from the late eighteenth century right through the nineteenth. Caesar is there, where politicians, military historians, and journalists address revolution, nationalism, the establishment of a constitution, the centralising powers of the presidency, civil war, empire, or political assassination. From this starting-point, moving through a broadly chronological series of detailed case studies from the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, I analyse the reception of Caesar in the USA as a set of intriguing intersections between the history of ancient Rome, the reception of antiquity, high and popular culture, and American social and political history. These case studies will demonstrate how Caesar has become a rich resource in American culture through which to support or challenge revolution, dictatorship, military might, imperialism, and political assassination, and, from a more personal perspective, to promote public virtues (such as leadership and risk taking), to excite private vices (especially luxury and gambling), to shape provocative ethnic identities (the 'Caesars' associated, for example, with Italian and African American identities), or to entertain. By means of the investigation of Caesar's reception in the USA, this research project also aims to explore the modern reception of Classics itself; to demonstrate the intersection of classical reception with issues of national and personal identity; and to interrogate the relationship between high and popular culture. This monograph will be the first full-length study of the person of Caesar {rather than the play by Shakespeare) in American culture. It seeks to enhance understanding of the importance of Caesar to western culture and of ancient Rome to modern America. It also sets out to explore the specificity of modern receptions of antiquity, and the place of antiquity in the formation of national and personal identities.