The glorious, classical legacy of Greece is universally revered. But this legacy has come at a price. How will Greece ever move beyond its ties with the past? Is there such a thing as modern Greece? This book is the first to present an alternative cultural history of Greece. Beginning with the growth of Greece as a nation-state through to the present, it shows how modern Greece has long been undervalued and neglected. From the compositional process of the first National Poet to the first feminist text, the first sustained Marxist treatise of Greek society to the Athens subway system, this groundbreaking book brings together a fascinating mix of literary texts, maps and aspects of material culture to uncover the identity of modern Greece. In considering these rich cultural landmarks, Calotychos argues that a new relationship with the past must be forged if Greek literature, culture and society are to be truly part of the present and meet the challenges of modernity."Modern Greece: A Cultural Poetics" fills a major gap. Its refreshing approach provides an original insight into the everyday, lived experience of Greece. The intriguing range of case studies, the historical depth, and the engagement with cultural and literary theory will be of great value to literature students, cultural theorists, anthropologists, philologists and historians alike

This edited volume of interdisciplinary essays considers the aspects of nation, identity, and collective experience in the notoriously divided island of Cyprus. The contributors examine the role of international politics particularly the involvement of Greece and Turkey and examine the changing relationship between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities since 1955. The book challenges prevailing assumptions about political and cultural identity in Cyprus and theorizes on the prospects for mobilizing more multi-dimensional and workable formations of community on Cyprus. The result is a tightly conceived volume, divided into sections of national identity, political possibilities, the location of culture, and social and psychological perspectives.

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.

The glorious, classical legacy of Greece is universally revered. But this legacy has come at a price. How will Greece ever move beyond its ties with the past? Is there such a thing as modern Greece? This book is the first to present an alternative cultural history of Greece. Beginning with the growth of Greece as a nation-state through to the present, it shows how modern Greece has long been undervalued and neglected. From the compositional process of the first National Poet to the first feminist text, the first sustained Marxist treatise of Greek society to the Athens subway system, this groundbreaking book brings together a fascinating mix of literary texts, maps and aspects of material culture to uncover the identity of modern Greece. In considering these rich cultural landmarks, Calotychos argues that a new relationship with the past must be forged if Greek literature, culture and society are to be truly part of the present and meet the challenges of modernity."Modern Greece: A Cultural Poetics" fills a major gap. Its refreshing approach provides an original insight into the everyday, lived experience of Greece. The intriguing range of case studies, the historical depth, and the engagement with cultural and literary theory will be of great value to literature students, cultural theorists, anthropologists, philologists and historians alike