There’s exciting news from l'Année philologique: in response to growing demand from colleagues who work on receptions of classical antiquity, and following the authorization of the governing body of APh (the Société internationale de bibliographie classique), the American Office has begun including studies of classical reception in the online Brepols database. The American Office consists of Lisa Carson and Shirley Werner; Duke Ph.D. Mack Zalin, now Librarian for Classics, Comparative Thought and Literature, Jewish Studies, and Modern Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University, is chair of the SCS Advisory Board for APh.
Over the course of the last two years, the American Office has conducted a pilot project to create notices for articles and books on reception studies when these appear in periodicals regularly excerpted by this office. Reception studies is defined as the scholarly study of receptions of classical antiquity in every medium and in any period after late antiquity. Subjects include, for example, Renaissance receptions of ancient philosophy; Russian receptions of Homer and Vergil; popular 19th-century receptions of ancient costume; early modern understandings of Cicero’s political theory; the influence of classical architecture; receptions of the ancient world in film, TV, video games, manga, and pop culture in general.
Institutional and individual subscribers to the Brepols APh database access all reception studies entries by conducting a Simple search. Under "Thematic search", choose "Subject tree." In the dialog box that opens, click on "Modern reception," and then "Insert/Close" (at the top right corner of the box). Then click on "Search." All reception studies records that have been added so far (close to 500) will be displayed. Subscribers can also access individual records by searching in the usual way for subjects, authors, titles, or other criteria. The APh database is updated quarterly.