Geographies of Myth and Places Identity

📙 #𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐢📙
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𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐲. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐜𝐲𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐛𝐝𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
Marco Benoît Carbone
Bloomsbury, London, 2022

Turning to a region associated with Greater Greece and the geographies of Homer’s Odyssey, the study delivers a historical and fieldwork treatment of how places defined in imagination and media by their associated histories become sites of memory and identity, as their landscape and mythologies turn into insignia of a romanticised antiquity. The Strait of Reggio and Messina has been glowing with the aura of its mythological landmarks. Travellers and tourists have played Odysseus by re-enacting his journey. Scholars and explorers have explained the myths as metaphors of whirlpools and marine animals. The iconic Strait and village of Scilla have turned into imaginative place-myths and playgrounds. Carbone observes the enduring impact of Hellas on the real Strait today, where the continuous rekindling of philhellenic histories has shaped local view of tourism and development and elements of society celebrate the landscape of the Odyssey and appropriate Homer as their imagined heirs.