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2009 Graduate Research Colloquium, Abstracts
SESSION 1: 10.00 – 11.00 Discovering τα βυζαντινά παλικάρια
Stratos Myrogiannis (Cambridge), ‘Mind the Gap: the invention of Byzantium in the Greek Enlightenment’ In this paper I set out to trace the process of the theoretical assimilation of the idea of ‘Byzantium’ as a historical era into the Greek historical consciousness during the Greek Enlightenment. So far, the mainstream view on this subject is that ‘Byzantium’ became a distinctive part of Greek history thanks to the remarkable work of two of the most prominent scholars of Greek Romantic historiography, Spyridon Zampelios and Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. In this paper I revise this widely accepted view by reviewing key writers through their specific works that have historiografical qualities. Within the theoretical framework of the history of concepts and through a contextual analysis I argue that during the eighteenth century Greek-speaking intellectuals, from Meletios to Koraes, styled the history of the Greeks as a secularised and uninterrupted sequence of eras. The main problem these scholars faced was integrating in their narrative the Greek Middle Ages; a period European historians and antiquarians had ignored. In contrast, this period was viewed by Greek scholars as a historical gap. In their attempt to bridge this gap, the answer they gradually came up with was the invention of what Koraes first named – earlier than it is traditionally considered – ‘Byzantine history’.
Mary Greensted (Birmingham), ‘British Arts and Crafts Movement architects and Byzantine architecture in Greece’ Two young British architects, Robert Weir Schultz, and Sidney H Barnsley, were responsible for nurturing and developing the interest in Byzantine architecture in Arts and Crafts Movement circles. They spent nearly three years in Greece recording Byzantine churches on the mainland. After their 1
return to Britain in 1890 they began designing buildings and working in wood and metal inspired by their Byzantine studies. This paper will look at the impact of their early studies on their later careers as architects and designers. What was the attraction of Byzantine work for Arts and Crafts architects? How did Byzantine architecture fit in with Arts and Crafts principles about sound construction, honest design, craftsmanship and the economical use of materials? In Barnsley’s church at Lower Kingswood, Surrey and in Schultz’s St Andrew’s Chapel in Westminster Cathedral they produced two of the finest Arts and Crafts monuments that are both modern and Byzantine in character.
SESSION 2: 11.30 – 13.00 Across the borders
Annika Demosthenous (Oxford), ‘Becoming the Bard: Robert Burns, Vassilis Michaelides and the conception of the National Poet’ Born almost a century apart, and in places distant from each other both geographically and culturally, Vassilis Michaelides and Robert Burns have one notable thing in common: each is considered the National Poet of his country, the Bard, charged with voicing the very essence of the nation’s identity. Interestingly, there is a large section of common ground in their work, both in terms of their choice of subject matter, and in the issues they reconcile through their poetry. In other words, they share a complex relationship with tradition, class and national identity, as well as the need for equally complex negotiations between dialect and official language. Furthermore, both poets are deeply complicit in the manufacture of a credible, new national image, which to a certain extent endures in both places to this day, eliciting poetic responses both positive and negative. Through a comparison of the two poets’ oeuvres combined with an investigation of their reception through analysis of articles and biographies, this paper proposes to show that it is from this common ground that the characteristics necessary for the establishment of a National Poet emerge. 2
Foteini Lika (Cambridge), ‘The Figures in the Text: Metaphor as Metacommentary in Swift and Roidis’ Roidis, in the second of the Agriniot letters he wrote, charts the satirical genealogy of Pope Joan listing among her literary forefathers prominent ancient Greek and Latin satirical writers; as well as Italian, French, English and Spanish satirists from the Middle Ages onwards. However, the satirist whom he seems to emulate in order to keep his readers alert, as he himself admits in the ëΤοις Εντευξομένοις’ part of Pope Joan, is Jonathan Swift. In particular, Roidis’ anti-soporific remedy was inspired by Swift’s description of the flappers in the floating island of Laputa in Gulliver’s Travels. Nevertheless, even though Roidis admittedly draws his inspiration from Swift’s work and justifies his rhetorical poetics from Swift’s example, Swift’s rhetoric is in absolute contrast to what Roidis presents his readers with in Pope Joan. Instead, it is their use of metaphor as a metatextual commentary on satirical method that is the true affinity between the two.
Victoria Reuter (Oxford), ‘A ‘Penelopean Poetics’: Feminist Re-Vision of Myth in the Poetry of Francisca Aguirre and Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke’ Although myths have perpetuated some of the most restrictive notions of femininity in literature, women writers continue to engage with them and the archetypes they produce. According to DuPlessis, myth is: “a story that, regardless of its loose ends, states cultural agreement and coherence”1. Myths are not just remnants of ancient legends; they exist because we have all agreed that they should exist. Therein lies the crux of what feminism has attempted to unravel: how and why have we come to agree on such ideologies that subjugate and silence women? Moreover, why have women continued to use characters such as Penelope, the quintessential ‘dutiful wife’, as the vehicle through which to express their own poetic voice? This paper will examine how Francisca Aguirre (b.1930) and Katerina-Anghelaki Rooke
1
DuPlessis, R. B. (1985). Writing Beyond the Ending : Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-Century Women Writers. Bloomington, Ind, Indiana University Press.
3
(b. 1939) utilize Penelope as a figure with which to explore the idea of ‘Woman’ as an oppressive category for the poet and ‘Poetry’ as a prison for women. I will position these re-writings as part of a broader trend of ‘revision’ in feminist literature2 and will consider how each author participates in a particular narrative strategy that Barbara Clayton calls a ‘Penelopean Poetics’
2
‘Re-vision’ as coined by Adrienne Rich: Rich, A. (1972). "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as ReVision." College English 34(1): 18-30.
4
SESSION 3: 14.00 – 15.30 Gender and identity/identities Paschalina Domouxi (Birmingham), ‘From commitment to identity: A comparative reading of Axioti’s Twentieth century and Douka’s Fool’s Gold’ This paper will discuss the role of politics and the self in the fiction of two leading left-wing women writers. In particular, the focus will be on Melpo Axioti’s Eikostos Aionas (Twentieth Century,1946) and Maro Douka’s Arhea Skouria ( Fool’s Gold, 1979). I will attempt to shed light to the transition from clearly committed fiction in the 1940s to political narratives, produced after the fall of the military dictatorship (1967-1974), which focus on female selfdiscovery and challenge not only gender but also ideological stereotypes. Furthermore, I will try to draw some parallels between the two novels, regarding women’s place in public life and political action, with reference to their participation in the Resistance against German Occupation (1941-1944) and military dictatorship (1967-1974), and how this experience is portrayed in their fiction. In this attempt, I will concentrate on narrative techniques, style and women’s images, developed in these two novels.
Eirini Kotsovili (Oxford), ‘Deconstructing the notions of identity and gender in Galanaki’s Eleni, or Nobody’ Eleni, or Nobody, is a meta-fictional biography about a 19 th c. Greek woman painter (Eleni Altamoura), who conceals her identity and gender to pursue studies abroad, and about the outcomes of her life choices. This paper argues that Galanaki offers a postmodern, post/feminist exploration of the notions and technologies of identity and gender, by subverting grand narratives related to national and gender norms. The author challenges the notion of a unified self, replacing it with a multitude of subjectivities while accentuating the different life phases of Eleni (Eleni/Nobody, female/ male, Greek Arvanit/foreigner). Fragmentation and discontinuity become the central characteristics of the novel (from the story line and the arrangement of the text to a number of micro-narrative 5
strategies). As a result, identity is seen as a series of intricate subject positions assumed by the female subject, either due to internalizations of standardsetting social structures, or, as a reaction to prevailing Greek female stereotypes. Borrowing from theories that treat gender as a material and cultural phenomenon, this study traces Eleni’s gender self-transformation through her material experiences that inform her cultural meanings. The paper argues that gender exists in an interdependent relation with identity. In Galanaki’s Eleni, or Nobody their fusion becomes the guide for re-defining oneself through life experiences and choices, eschewing pre-ordained social practices and structurally engendered roles.
Eleni Mouatsou (Birmingham), ‘The role of the grammatical gender in Kiki Dimoula's poetry’ In this paper I look at patterns of usage of the grammatical gender (GG) in the poetry of contemporary Greek poet Kiki Dimoula. I start from the hypothesis that since every noun in Greek belongs to one of three genders (feminine/neuter/masculine), the use of a gendered language is compulsory in grammatical terms. In this paper I examine if this linguistic restriction is connected to a gendered social experience in Dimoula's poetry. I conclude with thematic, stylistic and linguistic observations occurring from the analytical study of grammatical gender in Dimoula's work. I suggest that the unconventional usage of GG can be read as an attempt to propose new ways of perceiving gender roles (thematic observation), to suggest new poetical forms that can work together with traditional meter and rhyme (stylistic observation); and to expose the linguistic influence of GG in the literary and social formation of gender specific symbols (linguistic observation). I expect that this study may shed light in the newly occurring poetic structures that emerge in Greek poetry and might prove beneficial in modern Greek studies as well as in feminist translation practice.
SESSION 4: 16.00 – 17.00 6
Late in the afternoon Nikos Mathioudakis (Univ. of Thrace), ‘The fuzzy areas of accuracy and confidence while guessing the idiosyncratic vocabulary of N. Kazantzakis ‘Οδύσεια’ In present study, the first pilot in a series, it is investigated whether and to what extent teenage students have the competence of decoding and comprehend the language of literature, the poetic grammar, of individual authors. More specifically, we are interested in Kazantzakis’ language and his talent of creating new words or bringing idiomatic words of the dialect of Crete back in use, in his unique epic poem ‘ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ’. Furthermore, we want to investigate the learners’ own confidence that they have guessed correct and they have understood not only the specific word they are asked to decode but also the underlying meaning of the whole sentence. Moreover, while trying to decode, are they self dependent using inference, internal and external cues and so on, or do they ask for help from an authority? These questions are crucial as they are more likely to influence our attitude towards the teaching of literature in general but more specifically the teaching of ‘ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ’, which is concerned to be ‘difficult’. Our research was conducted in Komotini, Greece, November 2008, with 1st year students selected on purpose so that they should still be under the influence of High School. The university students were separated in two groups and each group had to decode twenty words – ten by multiple choice and ten by free guessing. All these words were chosen, along with their context, from the Fifth Rhapsody of Kazantzakis’ Odyssey (‘ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ’). After they had completed their guessing, the university students had to specify their degree of confidence that they had guessed correct, on a bar one end of which, symbolized with 0, means “absolutely unsure”, while the other end, symbolized with 1, means “absolutely sure”. We believe that the area between “absolutely sure” and “absolutely unsure”, is a fuzzy area (Zadeh, 1965) as it is the area between the “absolutely correct” and “absolutely wrong” guessing. The use of a bar rather than the usual 3, 4, 5 etc point scales, was introduced in the hope that it might make the explanations easier and the results better manageable. The prima vista examination of the results, revealed some very interesting 7
findings. For example, in the first variable, accuracy of answers we haven’t got unexpected differences between two methods, multiple choice and guessing. On the other hand, in the second variable, confidence that they have guessed correct, the method of multiple choice seems to cause low levels of confidence. The results are still being processed on the SPSS computing package and we expect some interesting correlations between words, gender, methods, confidence, area, etc.
8
John Kittmer (King’s College London), ‘Ritsos and Vrettakos: Parallel Lives’
Ritsos and Vrettakos were born three years apart and within thirty miles of each other in Laconia; their times at the gymnasio in Gytheio overlapped and they were both attracted into left-wing politics. They share the distinction of being the only twentieth-century Greek poets to write lengthy, monolithic autobiographies in verse. In my presentation, I examine and compare Ritsos’ To Teratodes Aristourgima (1977) and Vrettakos’ Aftoviographia (1961), in order to illuminate their aims and techniques for thinking about and presenting the self. I consider autobiographical prototypes (e.g. Augustine, Wordsworth, Aragon), something of the history of the genre(s) in Modern Greek literature (i.e. apomnimonevmata, aftoviographia), key themes (childhood, politics) and autobiographical self-referentiality. The work presented is an extract of my research into Ritsos as reader, and I close the presentation with some speculation about points of contrast between Vrettakos as a writer of the self and Ritsos as a reader of the self.
9
SESSION 1: 10.00 – 11.00 Discovering τα βυζαντινά παλικάρια
Stratos Myrogiannis (Cambridge), ‘Mind the Gap: the invention of Byzantium in the Greek Enlightenment’ In this paper I set out to trace the process of the theoretical assimilation of the idea of ‘Byzantium’ as a historical era into the Greek historical consciousness during the Greek Enlightenment. So far, the mainstream view on this subject is that ‘Byzantium’ became a distinctive part of Greek history thanks to the remarkable work of two of the most prominent scholars of Greek Romantic historiography, Spyridon Zampelios and Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. In this paper I revise this widely accepted view by reviewing key writers through their specific works that have historiografical qualities. Within the theoretical framework of the history of concepts and through a contextual analysis I argue that during the eighteenth century Greek-speaking intellectuals, from Meletios to Koraes, styled the history of the Greeks as a secularised and uninterrupted sequence of eras. The main problem these scholars faced was integrating in their narrative the Greek Middle Ages; a period European historians and antiquarians had ignored. In contrast, this period was viewed by Greek scholars as a historical gap. In their attempt to bridge this gap, the answer they gradually came up with was the invention of what Koraes first named – earlier than it is traditionally considered – ‘Byzantine history’.
Mary Greensted (Birmingham), ‘British Arts and Crafts Movement architects and Byzantine architecture in Greece’ Two young British architects, Robert Weir Schultz, and Sidney H Barnsley, were responsible for nurturing and developing the interest in Byzantine architecture in Arts and Crafts Movement circles. They spent nearly three years in Greece recording Byzantine churches on the mainland. After their 1
return to Britain in 1890 they began designing buildings and working in wood and metal inspired by their Byzantine studies. This paper will look at the impact of their early studies on their later careers as architects and designers. What was the attraction of Byzantine work for Arts and Crafts architects? How did Byzantine architecture fit in with Arts and Crafts principles about sound construction, honest design, craftsmanship and the economical use of materials? In Barnsley’s church at Lower Kingswood, Surrey and in Schultz’s St Andrew’s Chapel in Westminster Cathedral they produced two of the finest Arts and Crafts monuments that are both modern and Byzantine in character.
SESSION 2: 11.30 – 13.00 Across the borders
Annika Demosthenous (Oxford), ‘Becoming the Bard: Robert Burns, Vassilis Michaelides and the conception of the National Poet’ Born almost a century apart, and in places distant from each other both geographically and culturally, Vassilis Michaelides and Robert Burns have one notable thing in common: each is considered the National Poet of his country, the Bard, charged with voicing the very essence of the nation’s identity. Interestingly, there is a large section of common ground in their work, both in terms of their choice of subject matter, and in the issues they reconcile through their poetry. In other words, they share a complex relationship with tradition, class and national identity, as well as the need for equally complex negotiations between dialect and official language. Furthermore, both poets are deeply complicit in the manufacture of a credible, new national image, which to a certain extent endures in both places to this day, eliciting poetic responses both positive and negative. Through a comparison of the two poets’ oeuvres combined with an investigation of their reception through analysis of articles and biographies, this paper proposes to show that it is from this common ground that the characteristics necessary for the establishment of a National Poet emerge. 2
Foteini Lika (Cambridge), ‘The Figures in the Text: Metaphor as Metacommentary in Swift and Roidis’ Roidis, in the second of the Agriniot letters he wrote, charts the satirical genealogy of Pope Joan listing among her literary forefathers prominent ancient Greek and Latin satirical writers; as well as Italian, French, English and Spanish satirists from the Middle Ages onwards. However, the satirist whom he seems to emulate in order to keep his readers alert, as he himself admits in the ëΤοις Εντευξομένοις’ part of Pope Joan, is Jonathan Swift. In particular, Roidis’ anti-soporific remedy was inspired by Swift’s description of the flappers in the floating island of Laputa in Gulliver’s Travels. Nevertheless, even though Roidis admittedly draws his inspiration from Swift’s work and justifies his rhetorical poetics from Swift’s example, Swift’s rhetoric is in absolute contrast to what Roidis presents his readers with in Pope Joan. Instead, it is their use of metaphor as a metatextual commentary on satirical method that is the true affinity between the two.
Victoria Reuter (Oxford), ‘A ‘Penelopean Poetics’: Feminist Re-Vision of Myth in the Poetry of Francisca Aguirre and Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke’ Although myths have perpetuated some of the most restrictive notions of femininity in literature, women writers continue to engage with them and the archetypes they produce. According to DuPlessis, myth is: “a story that, regardless of its loose ends, states cultural agreement and coherence”1. Myths are not just remnants of ancient legends; they exist because we have all agreed that they should exist. Therein lies the crux of what feminism has attempted to unravel: how and why have we come to agree on such ideologies that subjugate and silence women? Moreover, why have women continued to use characters such as Penelope, the quintessential ‘dutiful wife’, as the vehicle through which to express their own poetic voice? This paper will examine how Francisca Aguirre (b.1930) and Katerina-Anghelaki Rooke
1
DuPlessis, R. B. (1985). Writing Beyond the Ending : Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-Century Women Writers. Bloomington, Ind, Indiana University Press.
3
(b. 1939) utilize Penelope as a figure with which to explore the idea of ‘Woman’ as an oppressive category for the poet and ‘Poetry’ as a prison for women. I will position these re-writings as part of a broader trend of ‘revision’ in feminist literature2 and will consider how each author participates in a particular narrative strategy that Barbara Clayton calls a ‘Penelopean Poetics’
2
‘Re-vision’ as coined by Adrienne Rich: Rich, A. (1972). "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as ReVision." College English 34(1): 18-30.
4
SESSION 3: 14.00 – 15.30 Gender and identity/identities Paschalina Domouxi (Birmingham), ‘From commitment to identity: A comparative reading of Axioti’s Twentieth century and Douka’s Fool’s Gold’ This paper will discuss the role of politics and the self in the fiction of two leading left-wing women writers. In particular, the focus will be on Melpo Axioti’s Eikostos Aionas (Twentieth Century,1946) and Maro Douka’s Arhea Skouria ( Fool’s Gold, 1979). I will attempt to shed light to the transition from clearly committed fiction in the 1940s to political narratives, produced after the fall of the military dictatorship (1967-1974), which focus on female selfdiscovery and challenge not only gender but also ideological stereotypes. Furthermore, I will try to draw some parallels between the two novels, regarding women’s place in public life and political action, with reference to their participation in the Resistance against German Occupation (1941-1944) and military dictatorship (1967-1974), and how this experience is portrayed in their fiction. In this attempt, I will concentrate on narrative techniques, style and women’s images, developed in these two novels.
Eirini Kotsovili (Oxford), ‘Deconstructing the notions of identity and gender in Galanaki’s Eleni, or Nobody’ Eleni, or Nobody, is a meta-fictional biography about a 19 th c. Greek woman painter (Eleni Altamoura), who conceals her identity and gender to pursue studies abroad, and about the outcomes of her life choices. This paper argues that Galanaki offers a postmodern, post/feminist exploration of the notions and technologies of identity and gender, by subverting grand narratives related to national and gender norms. The author challenges the notion of a unified self, replacing it with a multitude of subjectivities while accentuating the different life phases of Eleni (Eleni/Nobody, female/ male, Greek Arvanit/foreigner). Fragmentation and discontinuity become the central characteristics of the novel (from the story line and the arrangement of the text to a number of micro-narrative 5
strategies). As a result, identity is seen as a series of intricate subject positions assumed by the female subject, either due to internalizations of standardsetting social structures, or, as a reaction to prevailing Greek female stereotypes. Borrowing from theories that treat gender as a material and cultural phenomenon, this study traces Eleni’s gender self-transformation through her material experiences that inform her cultural meanings. The paper argues that gender exists in an interdependent relation with identity. In Galanaki’s Eleni, or Nobody their fusion becomes the guide for re-defining oneself through life experiences and choices, eschewing pre-ordained social practices and structurally engendered roles.
Eleni Mouatsou (Birmingham), ‘The role of the grammatical gender in Kiki Dimoula's poetry’ In this paper I look at patterns of usage of the grammatical gender (GG) in the poetry of contemporary Greek poet Kiki Dimoula. I start from the hypothesis that since every noun in Greek belongs to one of three genders (feminine/neuter/masculine), the use of a gendered language is compulsory in grammatical terms. In this paper I examine if this linguistic restriction is connected to a gendered social experience in Dimoula's poetry. I conclude with thematic, stylistic and linguistic observations occurring from the analytical study of grammatical gender in Dimoula's work. I suggest that the unconventional usage of GG can be read as an attempt to propose new ways of perceiving gender roles (thematic observation), to suggest new poetical forms that can work together with traditional meter and rhyme (stylistic observation); and to expose the linguistic influence of GG in the literary and social formation of gender specific symbols (linguistic observation). I expect that this study may shed light in the newly occurring poetic structures that emerge in Greek poetry and might prove beneficial in modern Greek studies as well as in feminist translation practice.
SESSION 4: 16.00 – 17.00 6
Late in the afternoon Nikos Mathioudakis (Univ. of Thrace), ‘The fuzzy areas of accuracy and confidence while guessing the idiosyncratic vocabulary of N. Kazantzakis ‘Οδύσεια’ In present study, the first pilot in a series, it is investigated whether and to what extent teenage students have the competence of decoding and comprehend the language of literature, the poetic grammar, of individual authors. More specifically, we are interested in Kazantzakis’ language and his talent of creating new words or bringing idiomatic words of the dialect of Crete back in use, in his unique epic poem ‘ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ’. Furthermore, we want to investigate the learners’ own confidence that they have guessed correct and they have understood not only the specific word they are asked to decode but also the underlying meaning of the whole sentence. Moreover, while trying to decode, are they self dependent using inference, internal and external cues and so on, or do they ask for help from an authority? These questions are crucial as they are more likely to influence our attitude towards the teaching of literature in general but more specifically the teaching of ‘ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ’, which is concerned to be ‘difficult’. Our research was conducted in Komotini, Greece, November 2008, with 1st year students selected on purpose so that they should still be under the influence of High School. The university students were separated in two groups and each group had to decode twenty words – ten by multiple choice and ten by free guessing. All these words were chosen, along with their context, from the Fifth Rhapsody of Kazantzakis’ Odyssey (‘ΟΔΥΣΕΙΑ’). After they had completed their guessing, the university students had to specify their degree of confidence that they had guessed correct, on a bar one end of which, symbolized with 0, means “absolutely unsure”, while the other end, symbolized with 1, means “absolutely sure”. We believe that the area between “absolutely sure” and “absolutely unsure”, is a fuzzy area (Zadeh, 1965) as it is the area between the “absolutely correct” and “absolutely wrong” guessing. The use of a bar rather than the usual 3, 4, 5 etc point scales, was introduced in the hope that it might make the explanations easier and the results better manageable. The prima vista examination of the results, revealed some very interesting 7
findings. For example, in the first variable, accuracy of answers we haven’t got unexpected differences between two methods, multiple choice and guessing. On the other hand, in the second variable, confidence that they have guessed correct, the method of multiple choice seems to cause low levels of confidence. The results are still being processed on the SPSS computing package and we expect some interesting correlations between words, gender, methods, confidence, area, etc.
8
John Kittmer (King’s College London), ‘Ritsos and Vrettakos: Parallel Lives’
Ritsos and Vrettakos were born three years apart and within thirty miles of each other in Laconia; their times at the gymnasio in Gytheio overlapped and they were both attracted into left-wing politics. They share the distinction of being the only twentieth-century Greek poets to write lengthy, monolithic autobiographies in verse. In my presentation, I examine and compare Ritsos’ To Teratodes Aristourgima (1977) and Vrettakos’ Aftoviographia (1961), in order to illuminate their aims and techniques for thinking about and presenting the self. I consider autobiographical prototypes (e.g. Augustine, Wordsworth, Aragon), something of the history of the genre(s) in Modern Greek literature (i.e. apomnimonevmata, aftoviographia), key themes (childhood, politics) and autobiographical self-referentiality. The work presented is an extract of my research into Ritsos as reader, and I close the presentation with some speculation about points of contrast between Vrettakos as a writer of the self and Ritsos as a reader of the self.
9
