Retelling the Past in Contemporary Greek Literature, Film, and Popular Culture

This book deals with historical consciousness and its artistic expressions in contemporary Greece since 1989 from the point of view that contemporary Greeks have been faced with the contradictions between on the one hand a glorious, world-famous yet distant past and, on the other, a traumatic contemporary history of wars, expulsions, civil strife and political and economic crises. Such clashes of imaginary identifications and collective traumas call for interpretations not only from historians but also from artists and storytellers. Therefore, the chapters in this volume explore the ways in which sensitive and creative perspectives of art approach and appropriate history in Greece.Through a rich collection of analytical case studies and creative reflections on Greece’s past, present, and future this volume presents the reader with the ways a set of contemporary Greek storytellers in different genres have incorporated previously under-explored or little-known themes, events, and epochs in modern Greek history showing how the past, by being interpreted and represented in the present, can teach us a lot about contemporary Greek society. The themes that form the point of departure for the stories told or retold cover various significant components of Greek history and culture such as ancient myths, the Ottoman period, the Greek War of Independence and the Greek Civil War, but also less prominent or known aspects of Greek history such as the Greek Enlightenment, the long and tragic history of Greek Jewry, and migration to and from Greece.

“With contributions from scholars, fiction writers, and filmmakers, this is a rich volume exploring iconoclastic treatments of the past together with some neglected legacies. Focusing on post-classical Greece, it offers thought-provoking papers on a variety of genres (narratives, poems, films, and plays) and invites readers to engage critically with silences and traumatic memories. It analyzes the uses of history in different cultural forms and contexts after 1989, which serves as a key date, and offers a useful prism through which to view contemporary Greece.”

-- Dimitris Tziovas, University of Birmingham
Combining scholarly texts with practitioners’ reflections and literary translations, this eclectic collection focuses on the entanglements of history on Greece’s contemporary fiction making, offering a fascinating insight into the range, variety, and sophistication of creative work produced in, and in connection to, the country and its past. The contributions enlighten neglected histories, engage with migrant narratives, address crisis and trauma, and situate the popular at the heart of contemporary retellings of the past. The creative work sampled evidences the richness of the cultural output emanating from Greece and leaves the reader wishing for more. -- Lydia Papadimitriou, Liverpool John Moores University

Gerasimus Katsan is associate professor and coordinator of the Modern Greek Program at Queens College, City University of New York.Trine Stauning Willert is honorary research fellow at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham.

This book deals with historical consciousness and its artistic expressions in contemporary Greece since 1989 from the point of view that contemporary Greeks have been faced with the contradictions between on the one hand a glorious, world-famous yet distant past and, on the other, a traumatic contemporary history of wars, expulsions, civil strife and political and economic crises. Such clashes of imaginary identifications and collective traumas call for interpretations not only from historians but also from artists and storytellers. Therefore, the chapters in this volume explore the ways in which sensitive and creative perspectives of art approach and appropriate history in Greece. Through a rich collection of analytical case studies and creative reflections on Greece's past, present, and future this volume presents the reader with the ways a set of contemporary Greek storytellers in different genres have incorporated previously under-explored or little-known themes, events, and epochs in modern Greek history showing how the past, by being interpreted and represented in the present, can teach us a lot about contemporary Greek society. The themes that form the point of departure for the stories told or retold cover various significant components of Greek history and culture such as ancient myths, the Ottoman period, the Greek War of Independence and the Greek Civil War, but also less prominent or known aspects of Greek history such as the Greek Enlightenment, the long and tragic history of Greek Jewry, and migration to and from Greece.

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