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Irene Konsta - Classical Guitar
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Mussolini's Greek Island: Fascism and the Italian Occupation of Syros in World War II, by Dr Sheila Lacoeur
Friday, 12 June 2009
"Sheila Lecoeur has written a path-breaking and moving study of the Italian wartime occupation of the Greek island of Syros. This is the very first study I know which shows the realities of Italian fascist - as opposed to German - Second World War occupation from the ground up, thanks to the survival of a very rich archive on the island of the local wartime administration. Lecoeur makes adroit use of Greek and oral sources too. This is a grim story - a case study of how not to do occupation - which culminated in a devastating famine, mostly as the result of Mussolini's ill-thought out imperial ambitions. 'Mussolini's Greek Island' shows how the tragedy was compounded by Fascist visions of breaking Greece up and absorbing the Cyclades into an enlarged Aegean zone of influence. This is a real addition to the scholarly literature, I think, on occupation and fascism, and a major intervention in the growing debate about Mussolini's visions of international fascist order. It should have a broad scholarly readership... and will appeal to scholars of fascism, the Second World War and military occupation in general. In the context of the ongoing historiographical reassessment of the Nazi New Order in Europe, this is an important contribution which offers us a badly needed point of comparison with German policy elsewhere."
Professor Mark Mazower (Columbia University)
Sheila Lecoeur received her PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London and is Coordinator of Italian in the Humanities Department at Imperial College London.
Dr Costas N. Hadjipateras Annual Memorial Lecture
Post-Classical Memories: Modern Greek Attitudes to the Past
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Dimitris Tziovas is Professor of Modern Greek Studies and Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK) (2000-2003). He served as Secretary of the European Association of Modern Greek Studies and is the General Editor of a translation series of Modern Greek literature published by the Centre. He has taught as a visiting Professor at a number of European and American Universities.
Published books include:
1. The nationism of the Demoticists and its impact on their literary theory (1888-1930), Amsterdam: Hakkert 1986, pp. 492.
2. Μετά την Αισθητική: Θεωρητικές δοκιμές και ερμηνευτικές αναγνώσεις της νεοελληνικής λογοτεχνίας [Beyond Aesthetics: Theoretical essays and interpretative approaches to modern Greek literature], Athens: Gnose 1987, second edition Odysseas 2003, pp. 382.
3. Οι μεταμορφώσεις του εθνισμού και το ιδεολόγημα της ελληνικότητας στο μεσοπόλεμο [The transformations of nationism and the ideology of Greekness in the inter-war period], Athens: Odysseas 1989, pp.170, second edition 2002.
4. Το Παλίμψηστο της Ελληνικής Αφήγησης: Από την αφηγηματολογία στη διαλογικότητα [The Palimpsest of Greek Narrative: From Narratology to Dialogism], Athens: Odysseas 1993, second edition 2002, pp. 285.
5. The Other Self: Sefhood and Society in Modern Greek Fiction Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books 2003.
6. Kοσμοπολίτες και Aποσυνάγωγοι: Mελέτες για την ελληνική πεζογραφία και κριτική (1830-1930), [Cosmopolitans and Outcasts: Studies on Greek fiction and criticism (1830-1930)], Athens: Metaihmio 2003.
Post-Classical Memories: Modern Greek Attitudes To The Past
If we attempt to outline the main ways in which Greek intellectuals have approached their country's past, and particularly ancient Greece, over the last two centuries, it comes down to the following four. The first approach could be described as the symbolic or archaeological way, which thanks to an undervaluation of the Middle Ages highlighted the gap between the classical past and the present. The distance between past and present could be bridged either symbolically - whether in a revival of the classical past as an idealized model or in a process of purification whereby historical accretions and modifications are purged from ancient monuments, place names or the language. While the first approach relies on treating the past as an archaeological monument, something distant which can either serve as a symbolic model or a vehicle for comparisons, the second, which can be defined as holistic and romantic, envisages the past as a living presence in the sense that vestiges can be traced in modern cultural phenomena. The third approach, which could be called aesthetic or modernist, represents an extension of the first two in that it assumes the presence of the past not so much as a historical survival but as a kind of aesthetic or stylistic continuity or a metaphorical equivalence.
The aestheticization of the past means that it loses its rigidity and becomes something that can be reassessed, revised or even rejected. This brings us to the fourth way of approaching the past which could be described as ironic, critical or post-modernist. In this approach the past is not considered a given or indisputable, but an entity which can undergo constant reinterpretation and revision, allowing suppressed aspects to emerge or acquire new significance. In this case the issue of historical continuity becomes less important and the focus shifts towards a sceptical unearthing and re-assembling of the past. As a consequence classical antiquity, which is seen as the least problematic period, is side-stepped while less vaunted or more controversial periods such as the Hellenistic, the Byzantine or the Ottoman take centre stage. The first two approaches are interested in the monumentalization, the purification and the Hellenization of the past while incorporating neglected periods of history; the third is concerned with aestheticizing the past and the fourth with relativizing it using the experience of the present. In these four approaches past and present are connected using the relevant emblematic concept tools for each approach: revival, continuity, memory and irony, and offer a useful guide to distinguishing the Enlightenment, the ethno-romantic, modernist and postmodernist approaches to the Greek past.
EEE Vassilopitta Evening
Sunday, 18th January 2009
The EEE Committee is pleased to invite members and their friends to their annual vassilopitta evening, which will be held at the Crypt of St Sophia at 6.00pm. |
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