Past Courses
L5/MGRK 150: Modern Greek Oral LiteratureMaria KaliambouMW 1:00-2:15
The course is for advanced students of modern Greek with further development in reading, writing, speaking and listening of modern Greek. Through the use of folklore texts the students will expand their cultural awareness of modern Greece. The readings cover a variety of oral literature genres, such as folktales, legends, myths, ballads, and folk songs. The main focus will be on folk and fairy tales published in Greece since the 19th century. The students will be familiarized with both the standard and idiomatic Greek. Oral presentations as well as written essays should address the cultural aspects of the readings.
MGRK 201: Cinema and MigrationGeorge SyrimisF 1:30-3:20
The age of Globalization has been characterized not only by an explosion in the transfer of information but also in the movement of people across the planet. Focusing primarily on the Greek and southern European contexts, the course examines the rich and complex tradition of cinematic representations of the migrant experience. Refigured as agents of modernity, transnationalism, mobile human capital, and sexual objects, the immigrant is examined through the prisms of identify, gender, sexual exploitation and violence, nationalism and ethnicity with an emphasis on last decades of the 20th century. The course is structured around the themes of ethnicity, matrimony, sexuality, and aesthetics. Download Syllabus.
MGRK 213: Family in Greek Literature and FilmGeorge SyrimisT 2:30-4:20
Focused on the Greek tradition, the course examines the structure and multiple appropriations of the family unit by aesthetic forms (folk literature, short stories, novels, and film) and political ideologies (nationalism, Marxism, and totalitarianism). Attention will be paid to questions of gender, violence within and beyond the family (sexual and/or social), incest, sibling rivalry, economic factors (dowry), allegories of political ideologies, and feminism. Traditionally, families have been the symbolic and practical nexus of a number of factors that intervene in this most central of social units, predicated on the union of two individuals. These factors include state or nationalist demographic concerns, tribal, clan, racial or class affiliations, inheritance and property transfers, physical or symbolic mechanisms of coercion and violence, inter-family rivalry and differential statues of its members according to gender and sexuality. The course aims to familiarize students with the complexity of issues by exposing them to the constitution of this social contract in the Greek tradition of the last two centuries and in a country where tradition and modernity are still in negotiation and flux. Download Syllabus.
MGRK 225: Occupied Europe During WWIIKonstantina MaragkouTTh 11:35-12:50
The Second World War has been one of the most extensively studied periods of modern history. During this war, the worse ever recorded in the history of humankind, the vast part of the European continent was subjected to a long and traumatic series of foreign occupations. Against conventional wisdom in the West, which associates the occupation of Europe with the Nazi regime almost exclusively, this course aims at surveying the experience of every occupied European country under a number of different conquerors, including Stalin’s USSR and Mussolini’s Italy, as well as the Allied powers at the concluding phases of the war. Moreover, this course will not only span over the whole course of the war but would also incorporate those cases of European occupation, which although linked to the war era, took place outside the official duration of the war, for instance Czechoslovakia. Its focus will lay on surveying the national destinies and exploring the conduct and effects of occupation of the European countries under the different conquerors, although substantial emphasis will unavoidably be placed on the prevailing Nazi and USSR rule. While its emphasis will be placed on the social, cultural and political history of Europe during the Second World War, military history per se will remain in the background. The prevalent themes, which this course aspires to address, are the experience of occupation by all occupied European countries, resistance and genocide, both from the conquerors point of view and the seized countries’ angle.
MGRK 216: Dionysus in ModernityGeorge SyrimisF 1:30-3:20
The course examines the fascination with the myth of Dionysus in the modern age by focusing on questions of agency, identity and community, psychological integrity, and the modern constitution of the self. It examines the various manifestations of the Dionysiac mode in literature, anthropology, and music, and historicizes the Apollonian-Dionysiac dichotomy as a modern configuration and constitution of the tension between rationality/law and emotion/chaos, its cultural manifestations as the antithesis of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, as well as twentieth-century variations of the same themes in psychoanalysis, surrealism, and magical realism.
MGRK 232/HIST 237J: Greece and the Balkans in Cold War History and CultureKonstantina Maragkou & George SyrimisTTh 11:35-12:25
The course aims to familiarize students with the basic background on Cold War history as it informs the literature and film that engage with the Cold War experience of Europe. In examining European culture during and after the Cold War, the course seeks to assess the interconnectedness of politics and dominant ideologies with their correlative literary and cinematic aesthetics models and with popular culture. At the same time it questions the cliché universality of the Cold War experience by focusing on the specific operative factors and divergences of certain countries particularly in southeastern Europe. Themes explored include totalitarianism, Eurocommunism, decolonization, espionage, state surveillance, the nuclear threat, as well as literary and cinematic aesthetics.
MGRK 230: Greece in the 20th CenturyKonstantina MaragkouW 1:30:3:20
The seminar is devoted to the critical study of the landmarks in the history of Modern Greece, a country often referred to as Southern European, Balkan, Mediterranean, Near Eastern. It will examine in details aspects of Greek society, politics, economics and foreign policy during the formative twentieth century, while a synoptic study of earlier periods will be also undertaken to place the present in its proper historical context. The main aim of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the interplay between domestic and international factors and developments in the shaping of Greece’s contemporary history and the multitude of challenges, which Greek society experienced during the 20th century.MGRK 202: The Poetry of C. P. Cavafy
George SyrimisSpring 2013
The course examines the interaction between gender, sexuality, and nationalism in the poetry of C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933). Major focus is given to questions of biography and representation, disclosure and evasion, as well as to Cavafy’s aestheticism. The course explores the multiple ways in which Cavafy appeals to and simultaneously resists prevailing notions of writing, desire, language, the Classical tradition and modernity as well as his contribution to our understanding of the history and politics of Greek and gay identity in the twentieth century. Finally, the course addresses Cavafy’s legacy and formative influence on authors and poets in the English speaking world (E.M. Forster, W.H.Auden, Lawrence Durrell, James Merrill) through a reading of the re-working of his poetry in translationMGRK 231/HIST249J: History of the Balkans since 1939
Irene KaramouzisSpring 2013
The seminar provides an overview of the political, social and economic evolution of the Balkan states since 1939. To do so, it will invoke three main themes that will also facilitate insight into the interaction between the global, regional, and country specific. Firstly, the course will explore the regional and inter-bloc dynamics within the structured Cold War system by looking at the impact the Cold War had on the region and, in turn, at the influence the Balkans, in particular the Greek Civil War and Yugoslavia’s conflict with the USSR exercised on the institutionalization and the dynamics of the Cold War during its nascent decade. Secondly, the course will look into the unique role Yugoslavia played in the creation of the alternatives and challenges to the bipolar structure and rigidity of the Cold War world, namely the Non-aligned Movement. Thirdly, the course will offer insight into the dramatic impact the end of the Cold War on the developments in the region, in particular on the collapse of the Yugoslav federation.HSAR 609: Venice and Byzantium
Robert NelsonSpring 2013
The history of Venice’s artistic interactions with Byzantium. While that history spanned the centuries of the Middle Ages and the Mediterranean east of Venice, the course focuses on Venice itself and the political, religious, and artistic uses it made of Byzantine artifacts during and after the medieval period.
MGRK 217/LITR150/CLCV210/HUMS273: Receptions of Odysseus in Literature and Drama
George SyrimisFall 2012
The course examines the reception of the Homeric figure of Odysseus in ancient and the 20th century literature. Major focus is given on the traditions of Rome, Greece, Ireland and the Caribbean as well as on the reincarnations of Odysseus as a modernist figure, a postcolonial subject, and an existentialist hero. Questions of genre will be also addressed (epic, lyric, the novel, film, and drama). Major authors include Homer, Virgil, James Joyce, Nikos Kazantzakis, George Seferis, Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott, and Mary Zimmerman.
MGRK 226/HIST251J: History of European Integration
Irene KaramouzisT 1:30-3:20
The purpose of this course is to survey the history of Western Europe’s most prevalent post-World War II development, - and arguably the most exciting and controversial ensuing political experiment, namely European Integration. Particular care will be placed on relating this process to wider historical developments, most importantly the Cold War. After examining the pre-WWII antecedents of European Integration and establishing the extent to which the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War contributed to the early stages of European integration leading up to the signing of the Treaties of Rome, the seminar will proceed with examining its development from the foundation of the European Communities to the establishment of the European Union. Through the evaluation of the evolutionary process of European integration, this seminar will assert that there were multiple moments when the European integration and the Cold war did influence each other; hence, the development of neither can be fully understood without reference to the other.
MGRK 230/HIST205J: Greece in the 20th century
Irene KaramouzisT 3.30-5.30Fall 2012
The seminar is devoted to the critical study of the landmarks in the history of Modern Greece, a country often referred to as Southern European, Balkan, Mediterranean, Near Eastern. It will examine in details aspects of Greek society, politics, economics and foreign policy during the formative twentieth century, while a synoptic study of earlier periods will be also undertaken to place the present in its proper historical context. The main aim of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the interplay between domestic and international factors and developments in the shaping of Greece’s contemporary history and the multitude of challenges, which Greek society experienced during the 20th century.
HSAR 264/MMES124/HUMS423: Byzantion, Constantinople, Istanbul
Robert NelsonFall 2012
Byzantion, Constantinople, Istanbul, one city by three names, straddles Europe and Asia. The life and monuments of one of the world’s most interesting and beautiful cities from antiquity to the present, Homer to Pamuk, and church to mosque to secularism.
HSAR 607: Medieval Revivals
Robert NelsonFall 2012
In some senses, the Middle Ages never ceased. Cathedrals continued to be used, manuscripts preserved and treasured, liturgies celebrated. In another sense, the term itself suggests something in the past, and after the Renaissance and especially the Enlightenment, the medieval period again gained favor. This course looks at the creation and collecting of medieval art from the eighteenth into the twentieth century for its contributions to the art and architecture of those years and the impact upon scholarship of medieval art.
Folktales and Fairy Tales
MGRK 212b/LITR 328b/GMST 212bMaria KaliambouSpring 2012
The course first approaches the folktale as a genre of oral literature. Some basic concepts of folktale and fairy tale scholarship will be discussed. The folktale will be placed in the oral literary canon by discussing and challenging the academic classifications of oral narratives., analyzing topics such as performance, storytellers, and audience. In the second part, the course scrutinizes the most important theoretical approaches, such as formalism, psychoanalysis, feminism and history-sociology. For the third and last part, the course will deal with the problem of orality versus literacy, as expressed in early European folk and fairy tales from Italy and France, followed by the Brothers Grimm collections through to popular chapbooks of fairy tales.
Dionysus in Modernity: The Irrational in the Age of Reason
MGRK 216b/ CLCV 216b/HUMS 214b/LITR 226bGeorge SyrimisSpring 2012
The course examines the fascination with the myth of Dionysus in the modern age by focusing on questions of agency, identity and community, psychological integrity, and the modern constitution of the self. It examines the various manifestations of the Dionysiac mode in literature, anthropology, and music, and historicizes the Apollonian-Dionysiac dichotomy as a modern configuration and constitution of the tension between rationality/law and emotion/chaos, its cultural manifestations as the antithesis of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, as well as twentieth-century variations of the same themes in psychoanalysis, surrealism, and magical realism.
Greece and Turkey in the Twentieth Century
Konstantina Maragkou
MGRK 228b/ HIST 239Jb/INTS 271b/MMES 143bSpring 2012
This seminar traces the parallel, intertwined, and conflicting national histories of twentieth-century Greece and Turkey. It focuses on analyzing the long-standing legacy of friction that underpins the relations of the two neighboring countries and accounts for the various factors that have historically galvanized it. It places particular emphasis on the influence of nationalism and the impact of the resulting myths and narratives on nation-building and foreign policy-making, as well as major contentious bilateral issues, such as their rivalries over Cyprus and the Aegean. After placing Greek-Turkish relations in their historical context, the course will conclude with the examination of current trends and concerns, including both countries’ modernization efforts, the EU challenge, and the recently emerged geopolitical environment within which détente arose, as well as policy alternatives for the near future.
Balkan Instability in the Twentieth Century: World Wars, Civil Wars and Dictatorships
MGRK 229b/HIST 248Jb
Konstantina MaragkouSpring 2012
This seminar provides an overview of the political evolution of the Balkan states in the past century by surveying prevalent moments of instability in their modern history. The political, social, economic, and cultural developments, in tandem with their external dimensions and internal dynamics, that caused the outbreak of wars and establishment of authoritative regimes are analyzed to understand the underlying forces that shaped the emergence and vicissitudes of the five countries composing the current geopolitical map of the Balkan peninsula. As the struggle goes on in many Balkan countries today, although in greatly changed circumstances, and several problems can be traced to the past, the study of the origins and evolution of the nationalist movements and ethnic conflicts in the region also aspires to contribute to a better understanding of the issues currently involved. The main themes include nationalism, world wars, civil wars, fascism, and communism, with emphasis on a comparative approach of concurrent developments.
Nikos Kazantzakis: From Revolution to Nihilism
MGRK 215a/ CLCV 209a/HUMS 213a/LITR 230aGeorge SyrimisFall 2011
No other Greek figure of the modern era has caused more controversy than the poet, novelist, essayist, philosopher, playwright, and travel writer Nikos Kazantzakis. The course examines the philosophical influence of Darwin, Nietzsche, and Bergson on Kazantzakis’ thought and his fascination with the figures of Christ and Odysseus. Emphasis is also given to questions of fiction and autobiography, history and revolution, travel writing, twentieth-century existentialism, and the reception of the Homeric tradition.
Twentieth-Century Southern European Dictatorships: Tyranny, Demise and Legacies
Konstantina Maragkou
MGRK 227a/HIST 248JaFall 2011
The seminar is two-pronged; its first part explores the historical reconstruction of various authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe by examining a handful of countries that experienced dictatorial rule in the twentieth century. Later work focuses on particular themes, including ideology, the leadership cult and culture, which will be comparatively examined. Concluding sessions revolve around those regimes’ legacies and the democratization process, and also focus on their domestic and international contexts, the role of NGOs and international organizations, and on memory and reconciliation.
The Cold War in Europe
HIST237Ja
Konstantina MaragkouFall 2011
A survey of the phenomenal superpower conflict for global hegemony, from a European point of view, focuses on its origins, effects, and dynamics on the Continent. It covers the period from the end of World War II and the coming of the Cold War to the détente which culminated in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Selected topics vary from the study of specific Cold War crises in a number of European countries to the exploration of broader themes. It aims to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of the causative factors that drove Cold War politics in Europe and provide a familiarization with the controversies and interpretations of its historiography. Finally, it offers a foundation for more advanced work in general Cold War history and in national history, as more declassified material becomes available.
ENGL 243b, MGRK 214b, CLCV 214b, HUMS 428b, WGSS 215b: After Cavafy: Modern Literature and the Eastern MediterraneanLangdon Hammer and George SyrimisSpring 2011
The course examines the formative influence of C. P. Cavafy primarily on the Anglo-American tradition of the twentieth century by focusing on questions of nationalism and imperialism, sexuality and aesthetics, the Sapphic tradition, biography and art, the reception of Antiquity, as well as the topography of modernity. The course investigates the authors’ fascination with the eastern Mediterranean in the early to mid-twentieth century as alternative loci for modern Greek, English, and American identities. Authors covered: E. M. Forster, Durrell, Merrill, Seferis, Myrivilis, Tsarouchis, Pamuk, H. D., Woolf, and others.
MGRK 225b/HIST 243b/INTS 374b: Occupied Europe during WWIIKonstantina MaragkouSpring 2011
The Second World War has been one of the most extensively studied periods of modern history. During this war, the worse ever recorded in the history of humankind, the vast part of the European continent was subjected to a long and traumatic series of foreign occupations. Against conventional wisdom in the West, which associates the occupation of Europe with the Nazi regime almost exclusively, this course aims at surveying the experience of every occupied European country under a number of different conquerors, including Stalin’s USSR and Mussolini’s Italy, as well as the Allied powers at the concluding phases of the war. Moreover, this course will not only span over the whole course of the war but would also incorporate those cases of European occupation which although linked to the war era, took place outside the official duration of the war, for instance Czechoslovakia. Its focus will lay on surveying the national destinies and exploring the conduct and effects of occupation of the European countries under the different conquerors, although substantial emphasis will unavoidably be placed on the prevailing Nazi and USSR rule. While its emphasis will be placed on the social, cultural and political history of Europe during the Second World War, military history per se will remain in the background. The prevalent themes, which this course aspires to address, are the experience of occupation by all occupied European countries, resistance and genocide, both from the conquerors point of view and the seized countries’ angle.
MGRK 229b/HIST 248Jb: Balkan Instability in the 20th century: World Wars, Civil wars and DictatorshipsKonstantina MaragkouSpring 2011
This seminar provides an overview of the political evolution of the Balkan states in the past century by surveying prevalent moments of instability in their modern history. The political, social, economic and cultural developments in tandem with their external dimensions and internal dynamics, that were constitutive for the outbreak of wars and establishment of authoritative regimes will be analysed, so that the students form an understanding of the underlying forces, which shaped the emergence and vicissitudes of the five countries composing the current geopolitical map of the Balkan peninsula. As the struggle goes on in many Balkan countries today, although in greatly changed circumstances, and several problems can be traced in the past, the study of the origins and evolution of the nationalist movements and ethnic conflicts in the Balkan Peninsula also aspires to make a valuable contribution to a better understanding of the issues currently involved. The main themes that will be accounted for include nationalism, world wars, civil wars, fascism and communism, while emphasis will be placed on a comparative approach of concurrent developments.
HIST237Jb: Cold War in EuropeKonstantina MaragkouSpring 2011
It will be the aim of this course to survey the Cold War, this phenomenal superpower conflict for global hegemony, from a European point of view, focusing on its origins, effects and dynamics on the European continent. It will cover the period between the end of World War II and the coming of the Cold War and the détente process, which culminated in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The selected topics vary from the study of specific Cold War crises in a number of European countries to the exploration of broader themes. It aims to equip the students with a comprehensive understanding of the causative factors that drove Cold War politics in Europe and the familiarization with the historiographical controversies and problems of interpretation. Finally, it aspires to offer a firm basis for more advanced work in Cold War history either as a general era or in terms of national history, as more declassified material becomes available.
MGRK 228a/HIST 205J: Greece in the 20th centuryKonstantina MaragkouFall 2010
The seminar is devoted to the critical study of the landmarks in the history of Modern Greece, a country often referred to as Southern European, Balkan, Mediterranean, Near Eastern. It will examine in details aspects of Greek society, politics, economics and foreign policy during the formative twentieth century, while a synoptic study of earlier periods will be also undertaken to place the present in its proper historical context. The main aim of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the interplay between domestic and international factors and developments in the shaping of Greece’s contemporary history and the multitude of challenges, which Greek society experienced during the 20th century.
Greek Oral LiteratureFall 2010Maria Kaliambou The course is for advanced students of modern Greek with further development in reading, writing, speaking and listening of modern Greek. Through the use of folklore texts the students will expand their cultural awareness of modern Greece. The readings cover a variety of oral literature genres, such as folktales, legends, myths, ballads, and folk songs. The main focus will be on folk and fairy tales published in Greece since the 19th century. The students will be familiarized with both the standard and idiomatic Greek. Oral presentations as well as written essays should address the cultural aspects of the readings.
MGRK 213a, FILM 421a, HUMS 414a, INTS 380a, WGSS 261a: Cinema of MigrationGeorge SyrimisFall 2010
The age of Globalization has been characterized not only by an explosion in the transfer of information but also in the movement of people across the planet. Focusing primarily on the Greek and southern European contexts, the course examines the rich and complex tradition of cinematic representations of the migrant experience. Refigured as agents of modernity, transnationalism, mobile human capital, and sexual objects, the immigrant is examined through the prisms of identify, gender, sexual exploitation and violence, nationalism and ethnicity with an emphasis on last decades of the 20th century. The course is structured around the themes of ethnicity, matrimony, sexuality, and aesthetics. Download syllabus.
MGRK 202b /CLCV214b/LITR225b/HUMS278b/WGSS337b/WR: The Poetry of C. P. Cavafy: At a Slight Angle to Nationalism, Gender and SexualityGeorge SyrimisSpring 2010
The course examines the interaction between gender, sexuality, and nationalism in the poetry of C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933). Major focus is given to questions of biography and representation, disclosure and evasion, as well as to Cavafy’s aestheticism. The course explores the multiple ways in which Cavafy appeals to and simultaneously resists prevailing notions of writing, desire, language, the Classical tradition and modernity as well as his contribution to our understanding of the history and politics of Greek and gay identity in the twentieth century. Finally, the course addresses Cavafy’s legacy and formative influence on authors and poets in the English speaking world (E.M. Forster, W.H.Auden, Lawrence Durrell, James Merrill) through a reading of the re-working of his poetry in translation. The course is offered as a Writing Course (WR).
MGRK 228a 01 (12662) /HIST205J: Greece in the Twentieth Century
Konstantina MaragkouSpring 2010
The seminar is devoted to the critical study of the landmarks in the history of Modern Greece, a country often referred to as Southern European, Balkan, Mediterranean, Near Eastern. It will examine in details aspects of Greek society, politics, economics and foreign policy during the formative twentieth century, while a synoptic study of earlier periods will be also undertaken to place the present in its proper historical context. The main aim of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the interplay between domestic and international factors and developments in the shaping of Greece’s contemporary history and the multitude of challenges, which Greek society experienced during the 20th century.
HSAR 265b: Art of Byzantium, 850-1200
Robert NelsonSpring 2010
A survey of the art of Byzantium, a multinational empire that considered itself the direct successor to ancient Rome. Mosaics, churches, icons, enamels, silks, and carved ivories are placed in the context of the empire, the theology of religious images, and the history of devotional practices.
HSAR 599b:Byzantium and Italy
Robert NelsonSpring 2010
According to Vasari, the rude, crude art that we call Byzantine was surpassed by Cimabue and Giotto. This paradigm that persisted for centuries was challenged in the twentieth century by Byzantinists, who argued the superiority of their art, while others contended that both cultures were part of a larger medieval art of the Mediterranean. These perspectives, however, devote little attention to the uses that Italian artists and larger societies made of the foreign and ignore the impact of Italians in the Eastern Mediterranean. Topics include the creation of public space, spolia, palace architecture, aristocratic dress, kingship, and icon and the rise of panel painting in Italy. General theoretical issues at play are the power of icons, cultural identity, cultural interaction, the social status of the foreign, and European colonialism before its expansion in the sixteenth century.
MGRK 201a/L5: Modern Greek Poetry and MusicGeorge SyrimisFall 2009
The course is an advanced modern Greek course structured as an interdisciplinary study of the history of Greek poetry and song from the beginnings of the 19th century to the present. Through the prism of musical creation, the course examines the aesthetic, literary and intellectual debates of modern Greece, including the so-called “language question,” the professed east-west polarity of modern Greece, class and ideological conflict, the diversity of “the Greek Nation,” modernization, as well as gender and sexual politics. The course will pay attention to the structure, content, instruments, and performance contexts of Greek songs and will question the validity, political consequences, and social significance of terms such as “demotic song,” “Rebetiko,” “laika”(popular), “entechne” (artistic), “New Wave,” “Greek Rock,” and the post 1980s-crisis generation. In addition to its thematic emphasis, the course is intended to intended to improve students’ conversation and writing skills with a focus on the acquisition of analytical and interpretive vocabulary. Focus will be on advanced grammar, linguistic registers, dialects and the ideology of modern Greek. All materials after the title “Music/Texts” will be in Greek. Discussion in class and writing assignments will be in Greek.
MGRK 212a/GMST212a/HUMS277a/LITR328a: Folktales and Fairy TalesMaria KaliambouFall 2009
The course approaches, in the first part, the folktale as a genre of oral literature. Some basic concepts of the folktale and fairy tale scholarship will be discussed. The folktale will be placed in the oral literary canon by discussing and challenging the academic classifications of oral narratives. Topics such as performance, storytellers and audience will be analyzed. In the second part, the course scrutinizes the most important theoretical approaches, such as formalism, psychoanalysis, feminism and history-sociology. At the third and last part, the course will deal with the problem of orality versus literacy, as expressed in early European folk and fairy tales from Italy and France, followed by the Brothers Grimm collections through to popular chapbooks of fairy tales. The course will encourage a comparative reading of the primary texts from many European countries (German, French, Italian). However, the course will place specific focus on Greek material and will challenge the applicability or relevance of the Western European scholarship to an oral tradition of a country of the European margins such as Greece. Texts will be available in English though students are encouraged to read available material in the original language.
MGRK 226a/INTS372a/HIST251Ja: History of European Integration
Konstantina MaragkouFall 2009
The purpose of this course is to survey the history of Western Europe’s most prevalent post-World War II development, - and arguably the most exciting and controversial ensuing political experiment, namely European Integration. Particular care will be placed on relating this process to wider historical developments, most importantly the Cold War. After examining the pre-WWII antecedents of European Integration and establishing the extent to which the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War contributed to the early stages of European integration leading up to the signing of the Treaties of Rome, the seminar will proceed with examining its development from the foundation of the European Communities to the establishment of the European Union. Through the evaluation of the evolutionary process of European integration, this seminar will assert that there were multiple moments when the European integration and the Cold war did influence each other; hence, the development of neither can be fully understood without reference to the other.
HSAR 597a : Word and Image in Byzantium
Robert NelsonFall 2009
Word and image studies are a burgeoning field of art history and now have their own journal. This course looks generally at that literature and focuses on the Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire to consider the nature of words combined with images. Topics of interest are ekphrasis or the description of a work of art, inscriptions around works of art, and especially manuscript illumination, an area of sustained interest of Anglo-American scholars and historically the most popular subject of scholarship on Byzantine art. More attention has been paid lately to the image or icon, and this work needs to be integrated with a reconsideration of the nature of written and oral discourse.
MGRK 211b, HUMS 263b, WGSS 248b, CLCV 211b, LITR 335b:
Literature and War
Spring 2009
George Syrimis Based primarily on the Greek tradition, the course examines the generic origins of literature from the experience of war. Covering a range of texts from the ancient and modern traditions, we will examine genres that are either derived or respond to war as inhuman violence, honorific endeavor, necessary evil, sacred cause, or gendered conflict. We will focus on the way literature of war entails explicit and implicit figurations, interpretations, or incarnations of what it means to be human, including the self-constructions of identity through various periods of history. Genres under discussion include, epic, history, myth, romance, lyric, tragedy, and the novel. Authors include, Homer, Sappho, Herodotus, Thucydides, St. Augustine, Plutarch, Stratis Myriviles, Kazuo Ishiguro, Erich Maria Remarque.
MGRK 225b, HIST 243b, INTS 374b:
Occupied Europe during WWII
Spring 2009
Konstantina Maragkou The Second World War has been one of the most extensively studied periods of modern history. During this war, the worse ever recorded in the history of humankind, the vast part of the European continent was subjected to a long and traumatic series of foreign occupations. Against conventional wisdom in the West, which associates the occupation of Europe with the Nazi regime almost exclusively, this course aims at surveying the experience of every occupied European country under a number of different conquerors, including Stalin’s USSR and Mussolini’s Italy, as well as the Allied powers at the concluding phases of the war. Moreover, this course will not only span over the whole course of the war but would also incorporate those cases of European occupation which although linked to the war era, took place outside the official duration of the war, for instance Czechoslovakia. Its focus will lay on surveying the national destinies and exploring the conduct and effects of occupation of the European countries under the different conquerors, although substantial emphasis will unavoidably be placed on the prevailing Nazi and USSR rule. While its emphasis will be placed on the social, cultural and political history of Europe during the Second World War, military history per se will remain in the background. The prevalent themes, which this course aspires to address, are the experience of occupation by all occupied European countries, resistance and genocide, both from the conquerors point of view and the seized countries’ angle.
MGRK 210a, HUMS 262a, WGSS 247a, RLST 212a, LITR 341a:
Irreverent Texts: Religion and Literature in the Modern age
Fall 2008
George Syrimis The course examines the complex relationship between religion and modern literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Based mostly on the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions as these two clash in the literary texts, the course focuses on questions of modernity and tradition, the legitimacy of ritual, the relationship between church and state, the reception of antiquity, as well as the emergence of the modern discourses of gender and sexuality in light of religious practice and dogma. Readings include Henrik Ibsen, Emmauel Roidis, Georgios Vizyenos, Constantine Cavafy, Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, Nikos Kazantzakis, Stratis Myrivilis, and Gore Vidal.
MGRK 212, LITR 328, GMST 212a:
Folktales and Fairy Tales
Fall 2008
Maria Kaliambou The course approaches, in the first part, the folktale as a genre of oral literature. Some basic concepts of the folktale and fairy tale scholarship will be discussed. The folktale will be placed in the oral literary canon by discussing and challenging the academic classifications of oral narratives. Topics such as performance, storytellers and audience will be analyzed. In the second part, the course scrutinizes the most important theoretical approaches, such as formalism, psychoanalysis, feminism and history-sociology. At the third and last part, the course will deal with the problem of orality versus literacy, as expressed in early European folk and fairy tales from Italy and France, followed by the Brothers Grimm collections through to popular chapbooks of fairy tales.
MGRK 226a, HIST 251a, INTS 372a:
History of European Integration
Fall 2008
Konstantina Maragkou This seminar will survey the history of two prevalent elements in Western Europe’s post-World War II development, namely the Marshall Plan and European Integration. The Marshall Plan, the more commonly used term for the American proposal for a European Recovery Program, was a cold war milestone, which played an important role in the future course of European integration. It will therefore be one of the main aims of this seminar to examine its origins and its significance for the making of Postwar Europe. After having established the extent to which the Marshall Plan and other Cold War developments contributed to the European integration until the signing of the Treaties of Rome, the seminar will proceed with surveying the development of European Integration from the foundation of the European Communities to the Treaty of Maastricht. Through the examination of the antecedents and the evolution of European integration, this seminar will assert that there were multiple moments when the European integration and the Cold war did influence each other and the development of neither can be fully understood without reference to the other.
MGRK 206: Contemporary Greece: History, Society and Culture
Spring 2008George Syrimis
The course is an interdisciplinary study of the major historical, social, and cultural events and phenomena that have shaped contemporary Greece. Particular emphasis will be paid to the changing forces that inform current perceptions of Greek identity, the Classical past, Europeanization, ethnography, ethnic and immigrant communities, the language question, as well as gender and sexuality. Cultural phenomena addressed include film, music, dance and literature. The course will be conducted in English.
MGRK 224, HIST 403, PLSC 135: Wars, Conflicts and their Memory
Spring 2008
Giorgos Antoniou The course offers a comparative analysis of violent events and their remembering in the present. It attempts to show the limits of current representations of these events in societies under study. It analyses the ways collective and individuals memories are shaped and reshaped by the national, social, and individual choices and subjective interpretations. It aims at underlying the similarities and differences of remembering and forgetting in different national and international frameworks. Each week a general theoretical framework will be discussed and a specific case study will follow. The course will focus on the memory of genocides, interstate wars, civil wars, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, etc. Case studies will be the American Civil War, the French Revolution, the Vietnam War, the two world wars, the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, Algeria, Ireland, the Vichy France and others. A large part of the seminar will be devoted to discussion and use of visual sources, as art works, documentaries and films.
MGRK 207: European Oral LiteratureFall 2007
Maria Kaliambou
The course examines oral literature from various European traditions. Specific focus will be placed on Greek material, but a comparative study of sources from other countries (German, French, English, and south Slavic) will be taken in consideration too. Emphasis will be given to the oral genres of folktales, myths, and legends (oral prose), folksongs, ballads, and epic (oral poetry). Topics under discussion include genre and discipline definition and classification; problems of tradition, history and continuity in relation to ideological (nationalist) appropriations of oral forms; gender distinctions; performance and audience; and orality versus literacy. Texts will be available in English though students are encouraged to read available material in the original language.
MGRK 222, HIST 402: Themes in Modern Greek History
Spring 2007
Dimitris Kastritsis This seminar explores the history of modern Greece from its roots in the Ottoman period to the present day. The organization is both chronological and thematic, and focuses on key external and internal struggles that shaped the development of the modern Greek state and its culture, such as the Greek War of Independence, Balkan Wars, Asia Minor Catastrophe, WWII and Civil War. Specific themes to be examined include Greece’s relationship with Turkey and other neighbors, modernization and urbanization, and the status of minorities. Throughout the semester we will grapple with the question of historical memory and its role in shaping national identity. Sources include treaties and other documents, memoirs, literary accounts, and studies, all of which will be examined critically in order to understand the underlying political agendas. (syllabus)
MGRK 221, HIST 207:The Ottoman Empire: Political Legacies, Imperial RealitiesFall 2006
Dimitri Kastritsis
This course is an introductory survey of Ottoman history from the Empire’s beginnings in Medieval Anatolia to its collapse after World War I. The first half of the course examines the rise of the Ottomans at a time of cultural pluralism and political fragmentation; the struggle for centralization that ended with the capture of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror (1453); the Empire’s expansion in the sixteenth century under Selim I and S�leyman the Magnificent; and the character and functioning of Ottoman society and administration in the classical period. The second half of the course examines the question of Ottoman decline; the Empire’s struggle to maintain its superpower status in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; changes in land tenure and military institutions; the place of the Ottoman Empire in the world economy; the rise of independent magnates and the influence of nationalist movements; and finally, the central government’s attempt to respond to internal and external challenges through reform. Throughout the course, we will endeavor to understand how the culture and history of the Ottoman Empire has left its mark on the many modern states that used to be part of it.
MGRK 401: Minorities and Majorities in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1700-2000Spring 2006
Christine Philiou In this seminar we will explore the transition in the eastern Mediterranean from Ottoman Empire to multiple nation-states from the vantage points of national majorities and minorities, focusing in particular on the port-cities of Istanbul, Izmir/Smyrna, Thessaloniki/Salonika, Alexandria, and Tel Aviv/Jaffa. We will begin with a consideration of national narratives and the definitions/contexts of cosmopolitanism and minorities. We will then read a variety of primary and secondary sources on particular cities. There will be five major sets of issues throughout the semester: comparative nation/state formation of Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Israel/Palestine out of the Ottoman Empire and British Mandate (in the case of the latter two), the predicament of minorities in these twentieth-century nation-states and port-cities, the differences and similarities between local/urban and national history and from one city to another, and memory and the question of late twentieth-century nostalgia for a cosmopolitan past. While the weekly readings will proceed in roughly chronological order, these major themes will reemerge at several points in the semester. (syllabus)
HIST 209: The Ottoman Empire: Political Legacies, Imperial RealitiesSpring 2006
Christine Philiou This course offers a comparative approach to the seven centuries of Ottoman history. The questions that frame the course are: what made the Ottoman Empire unique among empires, and in what ways was it comparable to other empires—Mongol, Mughal, Persian (Safavid/Qajar), Byzantine, Russian, British, Habsburg, for instance? What were the continuities from Byzantium and how did Hellenism change in the Ottoman centuries? How and why did the Ottoman Empire survive over seven centuries? What did it mean to be Ottoman in 1300, and how had that meaning changed in 1600, 1800, and 1900? How was and was not religion—particularly Islam and Orthodox Christianity—a significant factor in shaping Ottoman state and society? How did Ottoman state and society change as the states around it changed? Which groups were part of the state, and which constituted Ottoman society, and how were the two categories changing over the centuries? (syllabus)
MGRK 205: Cavafy, Forster, and Durrell: Alexandria and its Literary Progeny
Spring 2006
George Syrimis The course examines the influence of Alexandria and its poet C. P. Cavafy on two English-speaking writers, E. M. Forster and Lawrence Durrell by concentrating on questions of nationalism and imperialism, sexuality and aesthetics, biography and art, as well as the topography of modernity. By focusing on Alexandria, the course investigates the authors’ fascination with the European south and the Asian east in the early to mid-twentieth century as alternative loci for modern Greek and English identities. Critical approaches include aesthetics, post-colonialism, gay and lesbian criticism, reader-audience response, as well as philosophical texts. The course will be devoted to the entire corpus of Cavafy and to the major works of the two novelists. (syllabus)
MGRK 204, WGSS 245, LITR 245: Our Greece: Western Visions of GreeceFall 2005
George Syrimis
The course examines the constructions of the terms “Hellenic” and “Greece” from the Enlightenment to the present through the prism of what we have come to call “Western” culture. The course explores the relationship between adaptation and interpretation through various media (literature, film, philosophy, literary criticism) as well as the social movements that have informed our concept of the Hellenic (political, sexual, aesthetic, religious, etc.). The course addresses the way in which ancient Greek civilization was refigured as an ideal cultural template, symbolic origin, and philosophical reflection for both contemporary Greeks and European Philhellenes. (syllabus)
MGRK 203: Mythologies of Hellenism: Imagination and Identity in Modern Greek Culture
Spring 2005
George Syrimis More than any other state founded in the 19th century, modern Greece was the effect of the profound power of myth. Whether as ‘the cradle of western civilization” or the captive maiden of ‘the sick man of Europe,’ the evolution of modern Greek society entailed a perpetual reconfiguration of its foundational myths and its long and powerful historical legacies. These legacies were partly based on internally developed paradigms of cultural continuity and partly on externally imposed western models of historical ruptures and lacunae. Where historical discourses differed and diverged, Greek creators called upon a rich repository of literary and oral myths, preserved in various forms of the Greek language, in order to negotiate and define the limits of their contemporary identity. Greece remains to this day deeply enveloped by its mythological past so much so that even the realist literary medium par excellence, the novel, is know in Greek as mythistorima, more than insinuating that in the case of Greece, its history is inseparable from its myths. (syllabus)
HIST 405: Modern Greece, Hellenism, and TurkeySpring 2005
Christine Philliou
In this seminar we will explore the conflicting, overlapping, and parallel national histories of Greece and Turkey in the 19th and 20th century. We will begin with a consideration of national narratives in general and of Greece and Turkey in particular. We will then read a variety of primary sources (personal memoirs and autobiographies, diplomatic correspondence, travel narratives, treaties and state documents, literature/poetry). There will be five sets of issues throughout the semester: comparative nation/state formation (in the 19th century and around the common watershed of 1922), the predicament of minorities in Greece and Turkey after 1922, the differences and similarities between local/urban and national history (for Athens, Istanbul, Izmir, and Thessaloniki, for instance), the question of national belonging to larger political and cultural/civilizational entities (such as the Middle East, Balkans, Mediterranean, and the European Union), and recent changes in national memory. While the weekly readings will proceed in roughly chronological order, these major themes will reemerge at several points in the semester.
PHIL 402: Hellenic Philosophical Theology
Fall 2004
Keimpe Algra
HIST 242: The Modern OlympicsSpring 2004
Theodore Bromund This Group II lecture course will meet twice per week, with one additional section meeting per week. It will survey the history of both the ancient Olympic Games, which were held from 776 BC to 393 AD, and the modern Games, which began in 1896 and will continue in Summer 2004 in Athens. (syllabus)
ANTH 403/603: Mother, Daughter, Empress, Nun:
Women’s Lives in the EasternMediterraneanSpring 2004
Christina Ewald
The course focuses on women’s roles in Byzantine and modern Greek society (from the 4th century AD to the present) and explores the lives of women in the larger Mediterranean and Balkan context. Although Greece is a patriarchical society as are most traditional Mediterranean cultures, women have since Byzantine times has powerful roles in the home and in public as mothers, saints/nuns, and political leaders. If the role of women has been downplayed in official historiography, popular culture has amply acknowledged the importance of women by showcasing them as central players in every significant event of life.
MGRK 202, LITR 285, WGST 327: The Poetry of C. P. Cavafy:
At a Slight Angle to Nationalism, Gender and SexualityFall 2003
George Syrimis The course examines the interaction between gender, sexuality, and nationalism in the poetry of C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933). Major focus is given to questions of biography and representation, disclosure and evasion, as well as to Cavafy’s aestheticism. The course explores the multiple ways in which Cavafy appeals to and simultaneously resists prevailing notions of writing, desire, language, the Classical tradition and modernity as well as his contribution to our understanding of the history and politics of Greek and gay identity in the twentieth century. Finally, the course addresses Cavafy’s legacy and formative influence on authors and poets in the English speaking world (E.M. Forster, W.H.Auden, Lawrence Durrell, James Merril) through a reading of the re-working of his poetry in translation, photography, sketching, and film. (syllabus)
PLSC 192: Cyprus and the Balkans: Conflict at Europe’s PeripherySpring 2003
Nicholas Sambanis
Analysis of the causes and consequences of violent political conflict in Cyprus and Bosnia. The origins, intensity, duration, and termination of these two conflicts in comparative perspective; strategies for the resolution of ethnic conflicts on Europe’s periphery.
ANTH 313: Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Death:
Spring 2003
Aspects of Byzantine and Modern Greek Private Life
The course provides a general introduction to rituals and ceremonies of private life in Byzantine and early Modern Greek culture (4th to 19th cent.). We will focus on the rites of passage that determined the life of the Byzantines and modern Greeks: birth, marriage and death were not only biological facts but also social events to which the community responded through a series of rituals. These important stages of a Byzantine’s and Greek’s life were always accompanied by the rituals of religious liturgy as well as by a series of festivities. A prolific literary and musical tradition (songs, laments) and a sophisticated material culture (for example jewelry, textiles, furniture) are connected with these rituals. Besides texts and archaeological data we will also use audio-visual material in order to fully understand the function and meaning of ritual in Byzantine and Modern Greek society.
HIST 486: Turkey: A Muslim Nation on Europe’s Edge
Fall 2002
MGRK 201: Greek Poetry and Song since 1800Fall 2002 The course is an interdisciplinary study of the history of Greek poetry and song from the beginnings of the 19th century to the present. Through the prism of musical creation, the course examines the aesthetic, literary and intellectual debates of modern Greece, including the so-called “language question,” the professed east-west polarity of modern Greece, class and ideological conflict, the diversity of “the Greek Nation,” modernization, as well as gender and sexual politics. The course will pay attention to the structure, content, instruments, and performance contexts of Greek songs and questions the validity, political consequences, and social significance of terms such as “demotic song,” “Rebetiko,” “laika”(popular), “entechne” (artistic), “New Wave,” “Greek Rock,” and the post 1980s-crisis generation. The course will also pay attention to cinematic works that have been formative images of Greek identity and frame a significant number of post- 1950 musical compositions. (syllabus)
ANTH 324: Cultures, Histories, and Passions in South East EuropeFall 2002
The course will familiarize students with the “ethnographic islands” of the southeaster region of Europe within the “currents of history.” Primarily, the course will be dedicated to the anthropological analysis of a number of different genres that describe and represent the region. We will read authoritative historical studies, as well as short stories, poetry, books of travel and fiction. Films will also be recommended or viewing and discussion. Our intention is to consider the various qualities and possibilities offered by each of genre to our understanding of the societies situated at the southeast corner of Europe. The cultural diversity of the area will therefore be examined both as a historical and as a contemporary phenomenon. We will consider the legacy of the classical world, the impact of Islam, the emergence of European commercial empires and the socialist experiments in the hinterlands. Ethnographic analysis of such phenomena as the construction of the agricultural peasant, the notions of shame and honor, the urban-rural divide, and the depopulation of the agricultural areas during modern times will follow. The course will end with a critical overview of the politics of continuity and the resurgence of Balkan nationalisms and Balkanisms during the last decade of the twentieth century.
LITR 426: Mediterranean FolktalesSpring 2002
Anna Stavrakopoulou
A large number of folktales will be studied in this seminar from a comparative perspective, with an emphasis on Greek material. Following an introduction on the methods of composition and dissemination, the tales will be discussed according to various analytical approaches (feminism, formalism, linguistics, psychoanalysis, etc.). The seminar does not have any prerequisites and familiarity with the material will be achieved through a survey of theories and an acquaintance with the tales from various geographical areas and traditions. During each weekly meeting the discussion will be focusing on theoretical topics for the first hour, and then specific tales will be analyzed along the lines set by the theoretical approach of the week.
LITR 245: Greece and the Modern ImaginationFall 2001
Stathis Gourgouris
This course reopens the long-term debate on the symbolic significance of things “Hellenic” in the construction of modernity in the so-called ‘Western’ world. Covering a range from the Enlightenment and Romanticism to contemporary manifestations, we will examine texts that are either derived from or respond to the Hellenic, whether as mimetic ideal, symbolic inspiration, narrative location, or occasion for cultural reflection. We will explore ways in which the “Greeks” have been constructed in various national contexts through explicit figurations, interpretations, or incarnations of the Hellenic, including the self-constructions of contemporary Greeks as response to European Philhellenism. Theoretical emphasis will be placed in the relation between aesthetics and politics, from the Age of Revolution to the Age of Empire, from the early nationalist imagination to contemporary “Culture Wars.” Material will be drawn primarily from literature and philosophy, but will also include travel literature, historiography, and political theory.