Atlantis Otherwise expands the study of the African diaspora by focusing on postcolonial literary expressions from Latin America and Africa. The book studies the presence of classical references in texts written by writers (black and non-black) who are committed to the articulation of the fragmented history of the African experience from the Middle Passage to the present outside of Euro-centric views. Consequently, this book addresses the silencing of the African Diaspora within the official discourses of Latin America and Hispanic Africa, as well as the limitations that linguistic and geographic boundaries have imposed upon scholarship. The contributors address questions related to the categories of race and cultural identity by analyzing a diverse body of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Hispanic receptions of classical literature and its imaginaries. Literary texts in Spanish and Portuguese written in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, and Equatorial Guinea provide the opportunity for a transnational and trans-linguistic examination of the use of classical tropes and themes in twentieth-century drama, fiction, folklore studies, and narrative.

Aspasia of Miletus is, next to Sappho and Cleopatra, the best known woman of the ancient Mediterranean. Yet continued uncritical reception of her depiction in Attic comedy and the naive acceptance of Plutarch's account of her in his "Life of Pericles" have hindered us from understanding both who she was or may have been and her actual contributions to Greek thought. Combining traditional philological and historical methods of analysis with feminist critical perspectives, Madeleine Henry traces the construction of Aspasia of Miletus's biographical tradition and shows how it has prevented her from taking her place as a contributor to the philosophical enterprise, and how continued belief in this icon has helped sexualize all women's achievements.

Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BCE-200 CE challenges the often-romanticised view of the prostitute as an urbane and liberated courtesan by examining the social and economic realities of the sex industry in Greco-Roman culture. Departing from the conventional focus on elite society, these essays consider the Greek prostitute as displaced foreigner, slave, and member of an urban underclass. The contributors draw on a wide range of material and textual evidence to discuss portrayals of prostitutes on painted vases and in the literary tradition, their roles at symposia (Greek drinking parties), and their place in the everyday life of the polis. Reassessing many assumptions about the people who provided and purchased sexual services, this volume yields a new look at gender, sexuality, urbanism, and economy in the ancient Mediterranean world.