The network Greek Studies Now participates in the celebrations for the bicentennial of the 1821 Greek War of Independence with a series of webinars in which we are asking scholars, artists, filmmakers, and authors to reflect on the meaning of this anniversary, taking the contemporary experience of Greece and Greekness as their starting point.

In our second meeting of the series, scheduled for 21 April 2021 (coincidentally, the day also marking 54 years from the imposition of the 1967 Colonel’s dictatorship), we are proposing the digital equivalent of an open-mic. We have asked a group of cultural creators – literary authors, filmmakers, comic-book writers - to submit a short video reflecting on the word, concept, idea and geopolitical, imaginary that the word “Greece” conjures for them today, in the current sociopolitical and cultural conjuncture. We have asked for fragments, extracts from work in progress, provocative ideas. We have invited our contributors to think not of the question “what is Greece”, but to consider the very title “What Greece…” as a puzzling, often absurd, and certainly open-ended fragment in itself. Reintroducing it in their own narratives in different ways, from “what kind of Greece” or “what Greece means to you” to “what the hell, Greece…”, the responses we will showcase mix the national and the personal, the rational and the absurd, the familiar and the weird, the playful and the austere.

In the first part of this event, we will present the videos we have collected, offering a heterogenous collage of literary, visual, aural, and multi-media reflections. In the second part, we will open the floor for a live conversation with contributing artists, taking the many threads they open up in their contributions further.

Video contributions will be in English or in Greek with English translation/subtitles. The roundtable discussion will be in English.

Confirmed participating artists and authors:

Alexis Alexiou
Vassilis Amanatidis
Orfeas Apergis
Glykeria Basdeki
Marios Chatziprokopiou and Anna Tzakou
Theodoros Chiotis
Christos Chrissopoulos
Maria Fakinou
Adrianne Kalfopoulou
Erofili Kokkali
Patricia Kolaiti
Alekos Lountzis and Orestis Papaioannou
Pavlina Marvin and Danae Sioziou
Afroditi Nikolaidou
Dimosthenis Papamarkos
Vassiliki Petsa
Elina Psykou
Soloup
Vicky Tselepidou
George Ttoouli

The event will be live streamed via YouTube. Please register here in order to receive the link for the livestream.

The first webinar in these series of events to mark the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Greek Independence, was held on 22 March: a discussion on the nation by revisiting Stathis Gourgouris’ classic book “Dream Nation.”

Following our second event, “What Greece…?”, our third webinar in this series will be held on 17 May 2021 under the title “We have never been racist”: Rethinking Race and Ethnicity in Greece.” Please sign up here if you would like to receive news and updates about other events organized by the network Greek Studies Now

 

About the network:

“Rethinking Modern Greek Studies in the 21st century: A Cultural Analysis Network” emerged from a partnership between the departments of Modern Greek at Oxford and Amsterdam but brings together scholars in several universities around the world and aims to progressively widen its reach to include more partners and countries. Our inaugural conference in Oxford (January 31- February 1, 2020) was the first meeting place for the formation of a dynamic network of scholars that has been growing ever since (a series of blogposts reflecting on the first meeting of the network are available here). Given the current restrictions that do not allow us to host face-to-face events, we will continue the network’s activities this academic year with this online roundtable series and – if the situation allows it – a 2-day conference in Amsterdam in the fall of 2021.