List of Figures and Tables

1. A Critical Race Studies Approach: Race and Racecraft in Apollonius’s Argonautica


Jackie Murray


2. A Postcolonial Studies Approach: From Fanon’s Revolutionary Literature to Glissant’s Relation


Sneharika Roy


3. An Ecocritical Approach: Early Modern English Epic Possibilities


Chris Barrett


4. An Affect Studies Approach: Reading Non-Normative Masculinities in Homer’s Iliad


Melissa Mueller


5. A Network Approach: Tracking Female Power in Seven Epic Narratives


Padraig MacCarron, Mairin MacCarron, Silvio Dahmen, Joseph Yose, and Ralph Kenna




Part2. A Sample of Ancient Iterations (The Beginnings-1000 CE)


6. The Epic Bible: Authority and Identity in the Face of Adversity


Shawna Dolansky and Sarah Cook


7. Gilgamesh and Tiamat Abroad: (Mis-)Reading Mesopotamian Epic


Karen Sonik


8. (Re)Inventing an Epic: Reading the Tamil Cilappatik?ram across Time


Morgan J Curtis


9. Sri Lanka’s Mah?vamosa, The Great Chronicle


Kristin Scheible


10. The ‘Epic of the Anglo-Saxons’: The Many Cultural Streams of Beowulf


Maria Jose Gomez Calderon


11. Ecological Colonialism in Vergil’s Aeneid


Laura Zientek




Part3. "Middle" Period Re-castings and Innovations (1000-1850 CE)


12. Sunjata Fasa and the Oral Epic Tradition of Mali


Kassim Kone


13. Kingship and Power in Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan and the Prophetic Konigsnovelle


Helen Blatherwick


14. A Battle of Equals: Rustam and Isfandiar in Illustrated Manuscripts of the Sh?hn?ma


Behrang Nabavi Nejad


15. From Oghuz Khan to Exodus: Lineage, Heroism, and Migration in Oghuz Turk Tradition


Ali Aydin Karamustafa


16. The "Hindu" Epics? Telling the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in Premodern South Asia


Sohini Sarah Pillai


17. Trickster as Epic Narrator in Malaysia’s Hikayat Hang Tuah


Sylvia Tiwon


18. Connecting with Ancestors: "Imported" and Indigenous Epics in Southeast Asia
    Adrian Vickers



19. Epic Contestations: What Makes an Epic in Multi-ethnic China?


Mark Bender


20. Whose Epic is it, Anyway? Gesar and the Myth of National Epic


Natasha Mikles


21. Ode to Mongolian Heroism: The Oirat Epic Jangar


Chao Gejin


22. Placation, Memorial, and History in Japan’s The Tale of the Heike and Beyond


Elizabeth Oyler


23. Guaman Poma’s Epic Letter: A Complex Salvo against Spanish Colonialism in the Andes


Scotti M. Norman


24. Human Owls and Political Sorcery in the Anales de Cuauhtitlan


Martin Vega Olmedo


25. An "Epic of Sorts": Gaspar de Villagra and His Impossible Epic of the New Mexico


Manuel M. Martin-Rodriguez


26. Gender Performance and Gendered Warriors in the Albanian Epic


Anna Di Lellio and Arbnora Dushi


27. Slavic Oral-Traditional Epic in the Ottoman Ecumene


Robert Romanchuk


28. Empire and Resistance in South Slavic and Romanian Oral Epic Poetry


Margaret Beissinger




Part4. New Forms and Foundational Stories (1850-present)


29. "It Shall be Ruled by Swallows": The Epic of the Zulu King Shaka


Phiwokuhle Mnyandu


30. Lithoko: Continuity, Change, and the Future of South Sotho Praise Poetry


David M. M. Riep


31. "Man is the Center": Centripetal Power in the Malagasy Epic Tale of Ibonia


Hallie Wells and Vony Ranalarimanana


32. Female Leadership and Nation Building: The West African Epics Yennenga and Sarraounia, Mariam Konate



33. In Service of Authenticity: Epic in Central Africa under Colonialism


Jonathon Repinecz


34. "The Return of Rome": Empire, Epic, and Twentieth-Century Italian Imperialism in Africa, Samuel Agbamu



35. Empire and Resistance in Kazakh Oral Epic: The Case of S?tbek Batyr


Gabriel McGuire


36. Tolstoy’s War and Peace: National Epic on Page, Stage, and Screen


Julie A. Buckler


37. Ecocriticism and Indigenous Anti-epics of China


Robin Visser


38. Anti-epic as National Epic: Uses and Misuses of Epic in Argentina’s Martin Fierro


Nicolas Suarez


39. To Keep the Sky from Falling: The Epic of Indigenous Environmentalism in Brazil


Tracy Devine Guzman


40. An Epic Struggle in Mesoamerican Indigenous Literatures: Recovering Written Forms of Arturo Arias



41. African/American (Heroic) Epic: Lee’s Do the Right Thing as Critique, Caution, Comedy Gregory E. Rutledge



42. Epic Sound and Whiteness in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle