Global Seminar: Other Greeks, Another Greece
CURRENTLY CLOSED
Other Greeks, Another Greece
June 29–August 10, 2024
Karen Emmerich, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
Michalis Sotiropoulos, 1821 Fellow in Modern Greek Studies, British School at Athens
For travelers from the 19th century to today, the word “Greece” has evoked images of natural beauty, a landscape studded with ancient ruins, churches full of incense and Byzantine icons, the sounds and rhythms of ‘traditional’ music and dance. In recent years, these stereotypes have served as a counterpoint to stories of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa arriving on the shores of Greece in large numbers—a reality that, in media representations both inside and outside of Greece, has challenged the supposed ethnic homogeneity and cultural unity of the country’s population.
But how homogenous has Greece ever really been? And how has the narrative of continuity between ancient, Byzantine, and modern Greece conditioned public policy regarding minorities and migrants alike? This course will delve into the history and literature of modern Greece to question the idea of a homogenous Greece, and indeed the very notion of a Greek genos or omogeneia. Among other topics, we will consider the early days of the formation of the Greek state in former Ottoman lands with extremely mixed populations; the forced displacements of populations—whether conceived as ethnic groups and minorities or not—including the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1922; and the legal and social treatment of migrants in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The course will be based in Athens, but it will also involve visits to other locations: the Ionian island of Corfu and Ioannina and the surrounding region of Epirus, historical home to a multitude of languages and ethnicities. Throughout, we will explore the historical roots of the modern nation-state of Greece, the homogenization of its linguistic landscape, and the consolidation of a genealogically-based, ethnic majoritarian understanding of citizenship and belonging in the Greek state. Students will study literary, historical, anthropological, legal, and other materials, and will have the opportunity to meet numerous individuals living and working in Greece, including writers, scholars, politicians, and activists actively engaged in rethinking what Greece has been, is now, and could become in future.
“Other Greeks, Another Greece” is cosponsored with the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies.
Visit the PIIRS website for more information.
