conference program Unframing Hellenism pdf

The Modern Greek Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand &
The Department of Modern Greek Studies, University of Sydney
12th Biennial Conference
UN-FRAMING HELLENISM:
GREEK CULTURE AFTER THE CRISIS
4th - 6th December 2012
The University of Sydney

Convenors
Ass. Prof. Vrasidas Karalis
Dr. Anthony Dracopoulos
Dr. Panayota Nazou
The Conveners would like to express their gratitude to
The Executive Board of the
Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales
for their generous financial support and encouragement
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
THE REFECTORY ROOM,
MAIN QUADRANGLE
Registration for three days $140
one day $50
Students and Pensioners
$60 dollars for three days or
$20 for one day
$10 for 1 session
(includes morning tea, coffee, midday meal and afternoon coffee and tea)
$80 conference dinner
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UN-FRAMING HELLENISM:
GREEK CULTURE AFTER THE CRISIS
To frame means to form, construct, devise, conceive, imagine, picture and finally
to incriminate: Hellenism can be seen through all such angles.
Un-framing Hellenism has as its purpose the de-stereotyping of Greek culture,
the de-mythologisation of its current images and the reconstruction of its
imaginative potential.
Although the Greek crisis seems to have no end in the near future, Greek studies
empower themselves by reconsidering their conceptual paradigms and canonical
readings.
It is becoming obvious that the historicism that has dominated Greek studies is
now obsolete and that the nostalgia for past certainties has proven dangerous.
The need for future-oriented identities gains momentum and sets the conceptual
foundations for new paradigms for self-perception and self-articulation.
Together with culture, modern Greek subjectivity is actively deconstructed and
re-constructed: antiquarian ideas, ethnographic representations and ideological
obsessions are problematised and renegotiated.
As the crisis still rages, it would be useful to map out new images about Greek
culture and formulate new questions about its self-understanding.
The conference will attempt to bring together radical or revisionist ideas about the
position of Greece in the global world and discuss their underpinning philosophies.
This is the central question which we will approach from different methodological
and conceptual vantage points.
Organising committee
Professor Vrasidas Karalis, Dr Anthony Dracopoulos, Dr Panayota Nazou,
Dr Panayiotis Diamadis, Professor Peter Morgan, Dr Elisabeth Kefallinos,
Dr Alfred Vincent
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Nikolaos Gyzis, The Spider (1884)

OPENING
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 3RD, 2014
6.00 - 7.30
OPENING AT THE
CCANESSA LECTURE ROOM
AUSTRALIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE IN ATHENS
MADSEN BUILDING
(entrance from King Street)
Brief Addresses
Professor Duncan Ivison, Dean of Arts Faculty
Mr Harry Dafaranos, his excellency the Ambassador for Greece
Mr Harry Danalis, President of the Greek Orthodox Community of NSW
Professor Gregory Jusdanis, Ohio State University
The Conveners would like to express their gratitude to
The Modern Greek Studies
Foundation for its generous
support
Athenian Association of
Sydney & Nsw
The Greek Consulate of
Sydney and his
Excellency
Mr Stavros Kyrimis
The Embassy of Greece in
Canberra and
his Excellency the
Ambassador
Mr Harry Dafaranos
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4TH, 2014
THE REFECTORY ROOM, MAIN QUADRANGLE, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
NOTE:Each paper should be around 20 minutes allowing
10 minute discussion at the end
http://sydney.edu.au/arts/about/quadrangle.shtml
9.00 am Registration
SESSION 1 Chair: Eleni Eleftheris-Kostakidi
09.30 - 10.00 Francis Haran, (BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway)
The Greek Financial Crisis: Who Is Responsible?
10.00 - 10.30 George Couvalis, (Flinders University)
Telling The Truth Through Lying About Lying
10.30 - 11.00 Maria Zarimis, (University of New South Wales)
Hellenic Continuity and Nationhood
11.00 - 11.30 Andonis Piperoglou, (La Trobe University)
Reconceptualising early Greek Australia: Entangled allegiances,
shifting loyalties and the formation of an early Greek-Australian
identity
11.30 - 12.00 COFFEE BREAK
SESSION 2 Chair: Anthony Dracopoulos
12.00 - 13.00 Key-Note Address
Professor Gregory Jusdanis (Ohio State University)
Greece via Latin America and Latin America via Greece
13.00 - 14.00 Lunch break
SESSION 3 Chair: Michael Tsianikas
14.00 - 14.30 Anthony Dracopoulos, (University of Sydney)
George Seferis’ Hellenism: Unframing and Reframing
14.30 - 15.00 Dimitris Paivanas
Un-framing the Civil War: Literary Prose, Political Identities and
Historical Revisionism in Contemporary Greece
15.00 - 15.30 Vassiliki Rapti (Harvard University)
Either of the Height or of the Depth: Nanos Valaoritis’
De-stereotyping of the “Greeks” in the Time of Crisis
15.30 - 16.00 Anna Dimitriou (University of Technology Sydney)
Comparing Contemporary Greek Australian Writers: Mediators
Between cultures, or desiring something else
16.15 - 17.15 Helen Nickas and Vrasidas Karalis
In Conversation with the poet Antigone Kefala
18.00 - 19.00 She Hawke’s Book Launch By Vrasidas Karalis
Aquamorphia: falling for water
Madsen Building
ALL WELCOME
END OF THE DAY ONE
We also like to thank the Modern Greek Studies Foundation
for its generous support
And
Thoanian Association
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And
The Greek Consulate of Sydney and his
Excellency Mr Stavros Kyrimis
The Embassy of Greece in Canberra and his
Excellency the Ambassador Mr Harry Dafaranos

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6TH, 2014
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5TH, 2014
http://sydney.edu.au/arts/about/quadrangle.shtml http://sydney.edu.au/arts/about/quadrangle.shtml
SESSION 4 Chair: Maria Palaktsoglou
09.30 - 10.00 Andreas Triantafillou (The University of Edinburgh)
Unframing C. P. Cavafy: The Case of Lou Harrison’s Scenes from
Cavafy
10.00 - 10.30 Michael Tsianikas, (Flinders University)
Καβάφης 400 Μ.Χ: Κοσμοπολιτισμός /Κοσμοθεωρία
10.30 - 11.00 Ryan Patrick Preston , (Tan Tao University, Viet-Nam)
The International Scope of Photis Kontoglou’s Worldview
11.00 - 11.30 Przemysław Marciniak (University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland)
Bloodthirsty doctors, underground mice and annoying scholars:
Humour in the 12th century Byzantine satires
SESSION 5 Chair: Vrasidas Karalis
12.00 - 13.00 pm Key-Note Address
Professor Nikolas Kompridis (Australian Catholic University):
“Multiple Pasts/Alternative Futures: Reclaiming ‘Greece’ after the
Tyranny of Austerity
SESSION 6 Chair: Panayota Nazou
14.00 - 14.30 Cheryl Simpson (Flinders University)
Kendimata And National Identity: Is It All In The Past?
14.30 - 15.00 Antonios Litinas /Marianthi Kosmarikou, (Flinders University)
Blogging as an Assessment Tool in Higher Education
15.00 - 15.30 Maria Palaktsoglou/Katherine Sutcliffe/Maria Shialis: (Flinders University)
Re-framing the ephemeral: Reports on the contemporary
migration experience through blogging
15.30 - 16.00 Patricia Panagiota Koromvokis & Ioannis Kalaitzidis
(Macquarie University)
The relation between Social Problem Solving abilities and L2
Communicative Competence Differences between university
students and immigrants.
16.00 - 16.30 Erma Vassiliou, (Australian National University)
Language change in Byzantine Greek: examples from the texts of
Anna Comnena’s Alexiad
16.30 - 17.00 COFFEE BREAK AND RELOCATION OF THE CONFERENCE
17.15 - 17.45 Special Event organised in collaboration with Sydney Ideas
Public Media and Social Crisis
Helen Vatsikopoulos (panel chair)
George Megalogenis, Phil Kafcaloudes, Peter Manning, Jorge Sotirios
Law School Foyer, Level 2, Sydney Law School
Eastern Avenue, The University of Sydney
CONFERENCE DINNER (details to be announced during the Conference)
SESSION 7 Chair: Alfred Vincent
09.00 - 09.30 Vassilis Adrahtas
Kazantzakis the Cosmo-Hellene, or ο αφορισμός του Ελληνικού
09.30 - 10.00 Zdenko Zlatar, (University of Sydney)
Nikos Kazantzakis and El Greco
10.00 - 10.30 Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos, (La Trobe
University)
‘Nothing in between: Crisis, vision and death in the art of Goya
and Michelakakis
10.30-10:45 COFFEE BREAK
SESSION 8 Chair: Panayota Nazou
10.45 - 11.15 Maria Herodotou, (Latrobe University)
Μυθοποίηση και απομυθοποίηση του Ελληνισμού
σε κυπριακά πεζογραφήματα
11.15 - 11.45 Elizabeth Kefallinos, (Macquarie University)
The List that was Never Given: The Jews of Zakynthos and their
survival
11.45 - 12.15 Dimitri Gonis, (Latrobe University)
Greek Irredentism: The Great Idea and Slavo-Macedonism
12.15 - 12.45 Anna Chatzinikolaou (University of Sydney)
Un-framing Hellenism: A Diasporic response
SESSION 9 Chair: ASS. Elizabeth Kefallinos
13.30 - 13.50 Panayiota Nazou, (University of Sydney)
Un-framing politics: The Cultural Policies of Melina Mercouri, as
the minister for culture
13.50 - 14.10 Eleni Eleftherias-Kostakidis, (University of Sydney)
Unframing Hellenism, Phillipos Tsitos, Unfair Wolrd
14.10 - 14.30 Sophia Sakellis, (University of Sydney)
Red Hulk: A Modern Greek Tragedy of Dysfunction and Alienation
14.30 - 14.50 Konstandina Dounis
Of journeys, mother/lands and old photographs….
Snapshots of Hellenism through the prism of Greek-Australian
women’s writings.
SESSION 10 Friends in Crisis: Anzacs in the Hellenic World Organised by Dr Panayiotis Diamadis
15.00 - 15.30 Vicken Babkenian (Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies)
‘Anzac Angels – Anzacs in the relief movement for survivors of the
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocides
15.30 - 16.00 Michael Bendon
‘The Forgotten Flotilla: The Craft of Heroes, Crete 1941’
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16.00 - 16.30 Panayiotis Diamadis, University of Technology, Sydney
‘Friends in times of Crisis: Anzacs and Hellenism’
16.30 - 17.00 Takis Kozokos, Democritus University of Thrace
‘Το σχέδιο μνημείων στην αρχαιότητα με αναφορές στα μνημεία
της Ακροπόλεως’ (the design of Memorials and Monuments in
antiquity) (in Greek)
17.00 - 18.00 MGSAANZ GENERAL MEETING
18:00 - 18:40 CONCERT WITH GREEK MUSIC
Organised by Eleni-Eleftherias Kostakidi
KΑΦΕ GREKO
Georgios Spanos: Vocals, Guitars/bass/oud,
Γιώργιος Σπανός: Φωνή, Κιθάρα, Μπάσο, Ούτι
Paloma Soulos: Viola, vocals,
Παναγιώτα Σούλου: Βιόλα, Φωνή
Christina Bacchiella: Percussion,
Χριστίνα Μπακιέλλα : Kρουστά
Anna Papoulia: Vocals, Keyboards
Άννα Παπούλια: Φωνή, Ηλεκτρικό Πιάνο
Vocals: Mersina Papantoniou
Φωνή: Μερσίνα Παπαντωνίου
Sound Engineer/PA: Christos Kyvetos-Kostakidis
Τεχνικός ήχου: Χρίστος Κυβετός-Κωστακίδης
SPECIAL EVENTS
Events of the 12th Biennial Conference on Modern Greek Studies
SPECIAL EVENTS
THURSDAY DECEMBER 4TH, 2015
4.15-5.15 PM
REFECTORY ROOM
Helen Nickas and Vrasidas Karalis
Helen Nickas and Vrasidas Karalis
Antigone Kefala was born in 1935 at Braila, Romania, of Greek parents. After the returned to Greece, before emigrating to New Zealand in 1951. She graduated with degree from Victoria University, Wellington, and subsequently completed an MA In the early 1960s she moved to New South Wales, working first as a teacher of English second language, and subsequently as an administrator at the University of New South and as an arts administrator with the Australia Council. Kefala began publishing her Australian literary journals in the early 1960s, and her first collection, The Alien, appeared 1973. Her poetry often revolves around the experience of alienation and difference, problems of language and meaning, and she has been widely recognised as an important the migrant experience in modern Australia. Besides poetry she has written short fiction,
novellas and novels – including The Island (1984) – as well as essays and autobiographical
works, including a selection from her diaries: Sydney Journals, 1970–2000 (2008).
Thursday December 4th, 2015
4.15-5.15 pm, Refectory Room
Antigone Kefala was born in 1935 at Braila, Romania, of Greek
parents. After the war her family returned to Greece, before
emigrating to New Zealand in 1951. She graduated with an Arts
degree from Victoria University, Wellington, and subsequently
completed an MA there in 1960. In the early 1960s she moved
to New South Wales, working first as a teacher of English as
a second language, and subsequently as an administrator at
the University of New South Wales, and as an arts administrator
with the Australia Council. Kefala began publishing her poetry
in Australian literary journals in the early 1960s, and her first
collection, The Alien, appeared in 1973. Her poetry often revolves
around the experience of alienation and difference, and the
problems of language and meaning, and she has been widely
recognised as an important voice on the migrant experience in
modern Australia. Besides poetry she has written short fiction,
novellas and novels – including The Island (1984) – as well as
essays and autobiographical works, including a selection from her
diaries: Sydney Journals, 1970–2000 (2008).
Antigone Kefala was born in 1935 at Braila, Romania, of Greek parents. After the war her family
returned to Greece, before emigrating to New Zealand in 1951. She graduated with an Arts
degree from Victoria University, Wellington, and subsequently completed an MA there in 1960.
In the early 1960s she moved to New South Wales, working first as a teacher of English as a
second language, and subsequently as an administrator at the University of New South Wales,
and as an arts administrator with the Australia Council. Kefala began publishing her poetry in
Australian literary journals in the early 1960s, and her first collection, The Alien, appeared in
1973. Her poetry often revolves around the experience of alienation and difference, and the
problems of language and meaning, and she has been widely recognised as an important voice on
the migrant experience in modern Australia. Besides poetry she has written short fiction,
novellas and novels – including The Island (1984) – as well as essays and autobiographical
works, including a selection from her diaries: Sydney Journals, 1970–2000 (2008).
She Hawke’s
Book Launch By Vrasidas Karalis and Helen Nickas
Thursday December 4th, 2015
5.30 for 6.00pm, Ccanessa Lecture Room,
Madsen Building
Shé Mackenzie Hawke is an award winning poet, and trans-disciplinary
scholar currently attached to the Research School
of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Her work
has appeared in several academic journals, and her poetry has
THURSDAY DECEMBER 4TH, 2014
5.30 FOR 6.00PM
Madsen Building
She Hawke’s
Book Launch By Vrasidas Karalis and Helen Nickas
10 11
Shé Mackenzie Hawke is an award winning poet, and trans-disciplinary scholar
currently attached to the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National
University. Her work has appeared in several academic journals, and her poetry has
been widely anthologised. In 2007, she co-authored Tender Muse (Picaro Press) with
Carolyn van Langenberg. Her novel in verse Depot Girl (Picaro Press) appeared in 2008
and was nominated for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award and shortlisted for the

been widely anthologised. In 2007, she co-authored Tender Muse
(Picaro Press) with Carolyn van Langenberg. Her novel in verse
Depot Girl (Picaro Press) appeared in 2008 and was nominated
for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award and shortlisted for the
Colin Roderick Literary Award in the same year. Her research
interests include poetry, Greek mythology and psychoanalysis,
and the cross-currents between environmental, economic
and socio-cultural flows and values of water. She has recently
returned to her hometown Canberra after thirty years away and
lives with her two cats and dog. Her adult daughter, also an
author, lives and writes from Italy.
Leonie Jackson holds a Bachelor of Visual Art from Southern
Cross University, NSW, Australia, and has been an art practitioner
all her life. She has been collaborating with Shé on the theme of
water for the last decade. She is the recipient of the note-able
Laske Award for visual art from SCU (2009) and was a founding
member of Station St Studios, Mullumbimby. She is currently a
member of c.a.s.e. , a not-for-profit contemporary community art
group. Her paintings explore people’s relationships with water via
visual and textual collaboration.
Sydney Ideas - Public Media and Social Crisis
Friday December 5th, 2015
5.00pm - 6.30pm, Law School Foyer
Level 2, Sydney Law School
Eastern Avenue, The University of Sydney
An event in the 12th Conference of Modern Greek Studies, at the
University of Sydney
How has the Australian media responded to international global
crises such as the financial crisis of 2009, ‘Islamophobia’, the
world-wide increase in refugees and asylum-seekers and the
recent Ebola outbreak?
A panel of experienced journalists who have reported widely on
international issues will discuss the visual and verbal discourses
used by Australian media to cover major crises at home and
overseas and the impact on public debate.
Panellists:
Helen Vatsikopoulos (panel chair) is a Walkley Award winning
journalist who has worked for the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation and its international station, the Australia Network,
and for the Special Broadcasting Service. In a career spanning
27 years she has specialized in International Reporting and
has covered history-changing events like the fall of the Berlin
Wall, the collapse of Communism, the Rwandan Genocide,
the HIV-Aids crisis in West Papua, the Sri Lankan Civil War, the
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and the Bali Bombings–among
many others. Her reporting on the collapse of the USSR won
her a coveted Walkley award.
George Megalogenis is an author and journalist. He has 28 years’
experience in the media, including over a decade in the Federal
Parliamentary press gallery. He is a regular panelist on ABC TV’s
The Insiders. He is the author of Faultlines, The Longest Decade
and Quarterly Essay 40: Trivial Pursuit – Leadership and the End
of the Reform Era. His latest book The Australian Moment won
the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction and the
2012 Walkley Award for Non-fiction.
Phil Kafcaloudes is an Australian writer, journalist and broadcaster
who previously hosted international breakfast show on the
ABC’s Radio Australia network. In 2013 Phil was given a Highly
Commended in the category of International Radio Personality
of the Year in the Asian Broadcasting Union awards.
Peter Manning has had a distinguished 30-year career in
journalism. He had been Head of Current Affairs at the Seven
Television Network (1997-2000), Head of ABC Radio National
(1993-5) and head of ABC Television News and Current Affairs
(1989-92). Between 1985 and 1989 he was Executive Producer
of Four Corners. He has a Doctorate of Philosophy examining
representations of Arabic and Muslim people in Sydney’s media.
Jorge Sotirios has travelled the globe as travel journalist
covering the Arts, the Environment, Politics and Culture and
has written for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian
Literary Review. He has travelled to 30 countries working as a
foreign correspondent.
Cost: Free and open to all with online
registration requested
RSVP: Register online now by entering
your details at the bottom of the page.
Click ‘register’ once and wait for the
screen to refresh. You will receive
a confirmation email in your inbox
shortly after.
Contact: Sydney Ideas
E sydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au
T 9351 2943
More info:
www.sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas
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ABSTRACTS - key note speakers
Gregory Jusdanis
Ohio State Universi ty
Greece via Latin America and Latin America via Greece
In my presentation I will approach Greece by way of Latin America and vice versa. By
comparing two unrelated societies my overall aim is to reflect on our attachment to particular
views of the world and of ourselves. Specifically I will address this topic by looking at how
representative authors in Greece and Latin American have dealt with the overwhelming
cultural influence of Europe upon their respective societies. I will begin by examining
how Adamantios Korais called on Greeks, prior to their struggle for independence from the
Ottoman Empire, to emulate models in Europe, especially France. I then move to Argentina
by examining a key text in Latin American culture, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s Facundo:
Civilization and Barbarism (1845), which also put forward that Argentines copy developments
and institutions in Europe, specifically France and England. Later authors rebelled against
this emphasis on copying of external developments. Georgos Theotokas in his manifesto of
1929, To Elefthero Pneuma, argued that Greeks should engage constructively with European
literature so as to export their own and not just import what was published abroad. At roughly
the same time the Brazilian author and critic Oswald de Andrade declared in “Manifesto
Anthropofágo” that Brazilians, rather than just passively receiving what was shipped to them,
should ingest the world’s cultural heritage in an act of symbolic cannibalism. Central to both
manifestos was the stress on reciprocity and recognition of the peripheral society by the world
at large. General questions that my lecture will address: What do we gain by engaging in a
comparison of societies not sharing borders, traditions, or history? Can there be meaningful
comparison without a common source? Does such a strategy help us think through our
Eurocentrism or Americanocentrism? What are the risks and benefits of such a reading?
In my presentation I will approach Greece by way of Latin America and vice versa. By
comparing two unrelated societies my overall aim is to reflect on our attachment to particular
views of the world and of ourselves. Specifically I will address this topic by looking at how
representative authors in Greece and Latin American have dealt with the overwhelming
cultural influence of Europe upon their respective societies. I will begin by examining how
Adamantios Korais called on Greeks, prior to their struggle for independence from the
Ottoman Empire, to emulate models in Europe, especially France. I then move to Argentina
by examining a key text in Latin American culture, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s Facundo:
Civilization and Barbarism (1845), which also put forward that Argentines copy
developments and institutions in Europe, specifically France and England. Later authors
rebelled against this emphasis on copying of external developments. Georgos Theotokas in
his manifesto of 1929, To Elefthero Pneuma, argued that Greeks should engage
constructively with European literature so as to export their own and not just import what was
published abroad. At roughly the same time the Brazilian author and critic Oswald de
Andrade declared in “Manifesto Anthropofágo” that Brazilians, rather than just passively
receiving what was shipped to them, should ingest the world’s cultural heritage in an act of
symbolic cannibalism. Central to both manifestos was the stress on reciprocity and
recognition of the peripheral society by the world at large. General questions that my lecture
will address: What do we gain by engaging in a comparison of societies not sharing borders,
traditions, or history? Can there be meaningful comparison without a common source? Does
such a strategy help us think through our Eurocentrism or Americanocentrism? What are the
risks and benefits of such a reading?
CV
Gregory Jusdanis, Distinguished Humanities Professor, teaches Modern Greek and
Comparative Literature at the Ohio State University. He is the author of The Poetics of
Cavafy, Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture. Inventing National Literature, The
Necessary Nation, Fiction Agonistes. In Defense of Literature. A Tremendous Thing.
Friendship from the Iliad to the Internet just appeared. He has served as visiting professor at
the University of Michigan, Universidad del Rosario (Bogota), Universidad de Cartagena,
Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Kwara State University (Nigeria). He has received
fellowships from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholar,
CV
Gregory Jusdanis, Distinguished Humanities Professor, teaches Modern Greek and
Comparative Literature at the Ohio State University. He is the author of The Poetics of Cavafy,
Belated Modernity and Aesthetic Culture. Inventing National Literature, The Necessary Nation,
Fiction Agonistes. In Defense of Literature. A Tremendous Thing. Friendship from the Iliad to
the Internet just appeared. He has served as visiting professor at the University of Michigan,
Universidad del Rosario (Bogota), Universidad de Cartagena, Universidad de Buenos Aires,
and Kwara State University (Nigeria). He has received fellowships from the J. S. Guggenheim
Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholar, the American Council of Learned
Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Nikolas Kompridis
Aust ral ian cathol ic Universi ty
“Multiple Pasts/Alternative Futures: Reclaiming ‘Greece’ after the
Tyranny of Austerity”
It is hard to see a future beyond the tyranny of austerity. But there must be some vision of a
future that might be different not only from the neo-liberal “vision” which has blinded much
of the world, and traumatised some particular parts of it, but also from the equally blind
“vision” that was in place before it. There is no going back to pre-crisis Greece, or pre-crisis
Europe. But to what should a post-crisis Greece aspire that would open it up to different
articulations of its past and alternative disclosures of its possibilities?
“Multiple Pasts/Alternative It is hard to see a future beyond future that might be different of the world, and traumatised “vision” that was in place Europe. But to what should articulations of its past and CV
Nikolas Kompridis is Research the Institute for Social Justice. (Bloomsbury, 2014) Critique 2006), Philosophical Romanticism spectrum of topics in philosophy University of Toronto and new music ensemble, Sound leading composers – Frederic among others. After a decade inspired by the Critical Theory worked with Jürgen Habermas Goethe University. Drawing Philosophical Romanticism, rethinking the meaning of his conceptions of “reflective Critical Theory between Past CV
Nikolas Kompridis is Research Professor in Philosophy and Political Thought and Director
of the Institute for Social Justice. He is the author of The Aesthetic Turn in Political Thought
(Bloomsbury, 2014) Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future (MIT,
2006), Philosophical Romanticism (Routledge, 2006), and over 50 articles on a very broad
spectrum of topics in philosophy and political theory. Originally trained as a musician (the
University of Toronto and Yale University), he was the founder and director of the Canadian
new music ensemble, Sound Pressure, during which time he worked with some of the
world’s leading composers – Frederic Rzewski, Martin Bresnick, Louis Andriessen, and David
Lang, among others. After a decade long-career in music he was drawn into an academic
career, inspired by the Critical Theory tradition, which eventually took him to Frankfurt,
where he worked with Jürgen Habermas as a postdoctoral fellow in the philosophy
department at J.W. Goethe University. Drawing on the traditions of Critical Theory,
Political Theory, Philosophical Romanticism, and American Pragmatism, his work has been
concerned with rethinking the meaning of reason, critique, normativity, and agency from
the perspective of his conceptions of “reflective disclosure” and “receptivity” (in Critique and
Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future, and other writings).
16
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in crisis. In Kalymniou’s book, from its very title to the execution of the whole collection, a
number of Greco-Hellenic concepts are dealt with in a radical way. Kalymniou himself being
of Hellenic descent has been in constant dialogue with a great number of other cultures
and civilisations (past and present), religious practices and beliefs, philosophical movements
and ideologies, literary works, etc. to mention only a few, with the intention to question and
un-frame a great number of Greco-Hellenic concepts, including “ellinokentrikotita”. The
poet’s aphoristic attitude seems to have been inspired/influenced in a creative way by the
work and philosophy of the great Portuguese writer Fernardo Pessoa among others and
especially by his posthumous work, which he was working on for more than 35 years, Livro
do Desasossego by Bernardo Soares (being one of his heteronyms), which was first published
in 1982. Ten years later, in 1991 four different English translations of the work were published
by Richard Zenith, Iain Watson, Alfred Mac Adam and Margaret Jull Costa, all of whom
Portuguese word in the title “desasossego”. The title was either Book of Disquiet or Book of
Disquietute; hence the title of Kalymniou’s collection with a twist. Pessoa’s two-volume book
was translated first by Maria Papadima and published in Greek under the title Το βιβλίο της
ανησυχίας in 2007-2008 by Exandas Editions, that is 3-4 years after Kalymniou’s collection
was written, although it was published a few years later. Kalymniou’s inventive creation of the
poignant word “ανησυχασμός” definitely seems to have proven his ingenuity as a master of
the Greek language’s enormous expressive ability, serving of course his own purposes.
Francis Haran
BI Norwegian Business School
Leaders or Followers: Who Bears the Burden of Responsibility for the
Greek Financial Crisis?
My paper considers the Greek financial crisis from the standpoint of Intercultural
Communication, a discipline in the modern Business School which holds that the beliefs,
values and expectations of business cultures can be learned and applied to avoid costly
misunderstandings. Leadership is a key variable in Intercultural Communication studies. A
fundamental principle of western leadership practice states that if leaders wish to effectively
influence their followers, they must first find out about their followers. By applying this
principle leaders know not only what expectations they can have of their followers but also
what expectations their followers may have of them. When European leaders admitted
Greece to the EEC in 1981 and then to the Eurozone in 2001, the two decisions that paved
the way for the Greek financial crisis in 2009, they did not apply this basic leadership principle.
These two critical decisions, that is to say, were taken without reference to Greek leadership
expectations. My paper argues that if European leaders had been less absorbed by their ideal
of a United States of Europe and more accurately informed about the Modern Greek culture,
then the Greek financial crisis would have been avoided and the Greeks would now be well
down the road towards becoming successful Europeans.
ABSTRACTS
Vassilis Adrahtas
Hel lenic Inst i tute of Sydney
Kazantzakis the Cosmo-Hellene, or ο αφορισμός του Ελληνικού
In the 19th century the Neo-Hellenic reached a state of maturity thanks to the work of
Adamantios Korais –who managed to become European by being Hellenic. In the 20th
century the Neo-Hellenic attained its saturation through the work of Nikos Kazantzakis –who
accomplished Cosmo-topia through Helleno-topia. In the 21st century it seems the Hellenic
has no other historical destination to strive or wish for, since in a way Kazantzakis exemplified
its finality and finalisation. This paper, however, aspires to open up an imaginative space that
would allow one to welcome the era of the Hyper-Hellenic.
Vicken Babkenian
Aust ral ian Inst i tute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
‘Anzac Angels – Anzacs in the relief movement for survivors of the
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocides
At the same time as Australian troops landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, another event of
historical importance was beginning: the Armenian Genocide. The Gallipoli landings took
place one day after the mass arrest of Armenian leaders in Istanbul, the beginning of the
genocide. One group who remembered the Armenians, Assyrians and Hellenes are a handful
of Australians who were at the forefront of the relief effort, yet their stories have been largely
hidden. For example, Edith Glanville from Haberfield, Sydney, lost her son Leigh, from the 1st
Battalion, who died in battle at Gallipoli.
Dr Michael Bendon
Independent Mar ine Archeologist
Independent Marine Archeologist
“The Forgotten Flotilla” represents Dr Bendon’s most recent research into two British World
War II wrecks located off-shore from the ancient site of Phalasarna. After considerable
research, he discovered these craft to be Tank Landing Craft Mk1, prototype vessels developed
by the British that were first deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1941 and provided
support in the Mediterranean campaigns. Australian troops made a significant contribution to
the Battle of Crete and participation of Australians in the Mediterranean Theatre. The Greek
campaign and the Battle of Crete have forged an enduring link between Greece and Australia.
Anna Chatzinikolaou
Universi ty of Sydney
Un-Framing Hellenism: A Diasporic Response
The aim of this paper is to closely examine one of the recent poetic collections of the Greek-
Australian poet Dean Kalymniou entitled Ανησυχασμός, published in 2010, which is dealing
with a number of issues regarding the very concept of Hellenism in crisis in a globalised world
16 17

George Couvalis
Fl inders Universi ty
Telling The Truth Through Lying About Lying
The ancient writer Lucian is well known for satirising religious and philosophical frauds
and hypocrites. His True Stories (Alethon Diigimaton) is in part a parody of obscurantist
philosophical allegories, like Plato’s allegory of the cave. Yet he begins it by telling us that he is
more honest than all the other tale-tellers because everything he says is a lie. I discuss how he
evades the famous liar paradox to tell the truth about the philosophical/religious obscurantism
involved in allegory. Unlike some interpreters, I argue Lucian is not a post-modernist. He
would have regarded post-modernism as another form of obscurantism.
Panayiotis Diamadis
Universi ty of Technology, Sydney
Friends in Crisis: Anzacs and Hellenism
Across numerous conflicts in the first half of the 20th century, Australians and New Zealanders
were at the side of Hellenism: World Wars One and Two, the Asia Minor Campaign (1919-1922),
the relief efforts after the Hellenic, Armenian and Assyrian Genocides and the Civil War (1946-
1949). Beyond their battlefield record, these Anzacs and others from the Antipodes provided
substantial practical and moral support for a people going through successive major crises.
Anthony Dracopoulos,
Seferis’ Hellenism: Un-framing and Re-framing
Seferis’ work has been regularly used as a frame of reference to discuss processes of
modernization in a peripheral country like Greece or to explore the aesthetic parameters of Greek
modernism. For some critics, he was successful in building an aesthetic system which maintains
an equilibrium between past and present and clearly articulates aspects of “Greekness” which
continue to resonate in contemporary Greece. For others, his views have restricted the scope
of Greek modernism. Seferis undeniably played a significant role in setting the pace for literary
developments in Greece in the 1930s. He constructed a comprehensive edifice with systematic
views on Greek language, literary tradition, the classical period and Greece’s relationship to
Europe. His program of modernization was articulated at a critical time, when Hellenism seemed
to have shrunk within the confines of the Greek nation-state. It is a program of continuities,
symmetries and balances and not of ruptures, determined by historical conjuncture and his own
conservative temperament.
This paper aims to re-examine Seferis’ role in Greek modernism by exploring the key determinants
of his program within the context of alternative proposals and recent critical discussions.
Anna Dimitriou
Comparing Contemporary Greek Australian writers: Mediators between
cultures, or desiring something else?
Dispersed migrant writers, according to Stuart Hall, who know that they will never return to
their original homeland, but instead belong to two worlds, represent cultures of hybridity
which can negotiate ‘distinctly novel types of identity.’ In this paper I will compare how the
traditional Greek Australian writers, Styllianos Charkianakis and Dean Kalimnios, and the
non-traditional writers Fotini Epanomitis, Antigone Kefala and Christos Tsiolkas negotiate
their bicultural experiences, how they position themselves in relation to their communal
beginnings, and how they explore their emerging sense of selfhood. Do those from the
second generation of dispersed migrants writers differ markedly from those who belong
to the first generation, how do they imagine Hellenism, and what type of anxiety does this
negotiation create for the writers themselves?
Konstandina Dounis
La Trobe Universi t y
Of journeys, mother/lands and old photographs….
Snapshots of Hellenism through the prism of Greek-Australian women’s
writings.
Although first–generation Greek immigrant writings are persistently aligned with notions of
nostalgia for the longed for homeland, a closer reading of this body of literature – particularly
that which emanates from Greek-Australian women writers – serves to unhinge this assumption.
Moreover, first-generation women writers have been quietly un-framing Hellenism long before
the current crisis, evidence of this ‘de-stereotyping’ readily traced back through half a century
of literary output.These women survived the horrors of the World War, the subsequent Greek
Civil War, only to find themselves fighting for survival within that crippling social amalgam
of poverty and patriarchy, the Greek dowry system. Their emigration entailed negligible
choice. The further spectre of patriarchy within the parameters of Australia’s Greek Diaspora,
particularly acute in the 1950s and 60s, ensured that their snapshots of Greece entail a fusion
of perspicacity and scathing commentary, interlaced with a deeply resonating sadness. Their
second-generation daughters, born in the Antipodes and writing primarily in English, tend to
align themselves with the concept of a real or imagined Greece, their writings reflecting a
more convoluted cultural perspective, fluid in focus and outline. Through a revisionist reading,
ever fortified by Adrienne Rich’s assertion of the need to venture ‘beyond the present tense’,
this paper seeks to re-view first and second generation Greek-Australian women’s writings,
highlighting their collective challenge to Hellenism and its constructs.
18 19

Eleni Eleftherias-Kostakidis
Unframing Hellenism: Philippos Tsitos’ film Unfair World
The Film Unfair World (Αδικος Κοσμος) was released in 2011 by Greek Film Maker Phillipos Tsitos.
The screenplay, which been written by Tsitos in collaboration with Dora Masklavanou, cracks the
stereotyped view of Greeks as fun loving and lazy ‘Zorba types’ while addressing the issue of the
economic crisis in a novel way. Therefore it ‘un-frames’ this preconception of Greeks. It is not
the story of those in power but rather represents that of the ‘un-storied’ people of Greece who
suffer and have no hope of salvation while expressing their high sense of justice and morality.
Maria Herodotou / Μαρία Ηροδότου
La Trobe Universi ty
Μυθοποίηση και απομυθοποίηση του Ελληνισμού σε κυπριακά
πεζογραφήματα
Ο τρόπος που οι λογοτέχνες αντιλαμβάνονται τον Ελληνισμό συνδέεται στενά με τις έννοιες
του έθνους και του εθνικισμού, έννοιες που είναι μεταβλητές στο χρόνο και την ιστορική
στιγμή. Χαρακτηρίζονται από πολυμορφία και εξαρτώνται από τη δικαιολογία την οποία
προτείνουν για επίτευξη των εθνικών στόχων. Στην ανακοίνωση αυτή θα χρησιμοποιηθεί η
λογοτεχνία ως μαρτυρία, γιατί αναμφίβολα αποτελεί μια πηγή μέσα από την οποία μπορούμε
να αντλήσουμε στοιχεία για την κοινωνική κατάσταση, τις κοινωνικές διαθέσεις, στάσεις και
ιδεολογίες μιας δεδομένης ιστορικής στιγμής. Αν μάλιστα η ιστορική αυτή στιγμή συνδέεται
με κάποια μορφή κρίσης, είτε πολιτκή, είτε οικονομική, μάς παρέχει τη δυνατότητα να δούμε
τις κοινωνικές επιπτώσεις, την ιδεολογική σύγχυση και τον (πιθανό) επαναπροσδιορισμό των
ιδεολογιών, κυρίως όσον αφορά τους Έλληνες της Κύπρου και τη σχέση τους με το ελλαδικό
κέντρο και τον Ελληνισμό γενικότερα. Αν και είναι γνωστό ότι η Κύπρος σήμερα –όπως
και η Ελλάδα- δοκιμάζεται από οικονομική κρίση, η φάση αυτή είναι πολύ πρόσφατη για
να εκφραστεί μέσα από τη λογοτεχνία. Έτσι η ανακοίνωση επικεντρώνεται σε έργα που
δημιουργήθηκαν μετά την πολιτική κρίση του 1974. Πιο συγκεκριμένα επικεντρώνεται σε
μυθιστορήματα της Αγγελικής Σμυρλή, του Γιάννη Κατσούρη, του Νίκου Ορφανίδη και του
Λεύκιου Ζαφειρίου. Εξετάζεται ο τρόπος με τον οποίο οι συγγραφείς αυτοί μυθοποιούν την
κοινωνική «πραγματικότητα» και κατά πόσο αυτή η μυθοποίηση είναι αποτέλεσμα μιας
υποκειμενικής προσδοκίας για το έθνος. Εξετάζεται ακόμη, κατά πόσο η κρίση επιφέρει
κάποια ρήξη στις σχέσεις των Ελλήνων και αναπροσαρμογή της εθνικής ταυτότητας μέσα από
την υπέρβαση του εθνικισμού και την αντικατάστασή του με μια περισσότερο διεθνιστική
ιδεολογία που τους συνδέει με το σύγχρονο κόσμο.
Dimitris Gonis
Greek Irredentism: The Great Idea and Slavo-Macedonism
The Greater Greece, first envisaged by Feraios with his Hellenic Republic (1797), and later
propounded by Koletis (1844) would first have to address the heterogeneity of its population.
An integral part of this vision was Macedonia which in the 19th century was a polyethnic and
polyglot place in which the Slavic element predominated. It was this element that would
become the greatest stumbling block of Greek irredentism right up to the 1923 Treaty of
Lausanne. The establishment of an independent Greek State in 1832 and the emerging tug-of-
war over Macedonia inevitably produced an ethno linguistic separatism amongst Macedo-
Bulgarians who felt a special affinity for the land and who resented all contenders of their
homeland. By 1870, a Bulgarian Exarchate was established and separatist tendencies were
on the rise. It was around this time that we also have the first references to ‘Macedonists’ who
claimed to be descendants of Alexander but at the same time ‘pure Slavs’. These Macedo-
Bulgarians sought to promote a narrative of their separateness by challenging the Greek
interpretation of their history which they rejected along with the imposition of the Greek Church
and the Greek language. Having said that, it was Greek cultural and ecclesiastical arrogance,
and the systematic disenfranchisement of the Macedonia’s Slavic population, from both
history and the fate of Macedonia, that ultimately led to the emergence of Slavo-Macedonism
in the form of an anti or mis-Hellenism. This lecture will focus on the emergence of the first
‘Macedonists’ and the subsequent development of Slavo-Macedonism in the second and third
quarters of the 19th century. It will also examine the role of the Patriarchate in the emergence
of ‘militant’ Macedonism. Finally, it will examine the period between the Balkans Wars and
Metaxas dictatorship and its impact on subsequent generations of Slavo-Macedonians.
Elizabeth Kefallinos
Macquar ie Universi ty
The List that was Never Given: The Jews of Zakynthos and their
complete survival!
Researching the sources referring to the studies for the Holocaust in Greece, the country that
was wounded the most in entire Europe –where 87% of the Greek Jewry was annihilated in
Germany’s crematoria – only sporadic studies, and mainly in English bibliography, exist. This
presentation based in research that occurs in its initial stages, hopes to contribute in the Greek
studies that refer to Holocaust in Greece by researching the events of Zakynthos. As Zakynthos
was the only place in Europe that managed to completely save the Jewish population, it seems
that the cooperation of the church, the resistance forces and the Mayor’s determination have
an extraordinary result. The project examines at this stage the case of how the principle forces
of the island managed not to give a list with the names of the Zakynthian Jews, as it happens in
other places in Greece. The question that poses this presentation is, lest the aggressive denial
of the Greeks to give the list of the names played a significant role in the survival? What about
the role of the German Colonel who was ultimately responsible in regard to Jewish case? What
would happen if the German did not play blind eye and the reaction was fatal for both Greeks
and Jews? What about the role of resistance? These and other questions are trying to investigate
this presentation. Finally this project tries to join in with themes than emerged during and after
the crisis in Greece hoping to develop a dialog with topics that were unspoken by many people
and for so long.
20 21

Patricia Panagiota Koromvokis / Ioannis Kalaitzidis
Macquar ie Universi t y
The relation between Social Problem Solving abilities and L2
Communicative Competence
Differences between university students and immigrants.
Given the research that suggests the social problem solving abilities influence efficient and
effective social interaction, it was hypothesised that people with high social problem solving
abilities are able to use L2 effectively and they evaluate their L2 competence higher than people
scoring lower in social problem solving measures. Research suggests that immigrants are
characterised by high social problem solving abilities. The economic crisis in Greece generated
a significant number of immigrants with academic background and professional experience.
The specific sample was considered as ideal to test present research’s hypothesis. Therefore,
the hypothesis was explored with Greek immigrants having academic background and Greek
university students attending abroad a postgraduate course. Social Problem Solving Inventory
Revised (SPSI-R) was used in order to collect data related to participants’ ability of social problem
solving. Additionally, a questionnaire was elaborated for gathering measures of participants’
effectiveness in L2 use (as was evaluated by themselves). Results provided support for the
hypothesis above, revealing a moderate correlation between social problem solving abilities and
the self-evaluation of L2 competence. Additionally, the analysis indicated a significant difference
in social problem solving scores between Greek immigrants and Greek university students. This
differential effect was further investigated revealing a high correlation between social problem
solving scores and the self-evaluation of L2 competence in immigrants. However this correlation
was moderate in university students. Furthermore, the analysis was not revealed a significant
difference between the two groups (immigrant and students) for the variable of L2 competence.
The causality between variables has to be further investigated in order to reveal any possible
impact of social problem solving abilities on self-evaluation of L2 competence.
Takis Kozokos, Democritus
Universi ty of Thrace, Depar tment of Archi tecture and Engineer ing
Το σχέδιο μνημείων στην αρχαιότητα με αναφορές στα μνημεία της
Ακροπόλεως / The Design of monuments in Antiquity I regard to the site
of the Athens Acropolis
The paper discusses the design of Memorials and Monuments in antiquity, which came to
greatly influence ANZAC memorialisation in Australia stylistically and constructively.
Antonios Litinas / Marianthi Kosmarikou
Blogging as an Assessment Tool in Higher Education
In the beginning of the 21st century one could not have predicted the impact the internet would
have had on everyday life. As we now live in a computer dominated era, we use computer-aided
methods in teaching and learning at all levels of education. Consequently we are called
to facilitate the needs of e-citizens. Blogging is a part of this phenomenon. The question is:
could we use blogging as a means of assessment at tertiary level and with what success? This
study seeks answers to the above question in a practical way. In 2014 students studying Modern
Greek, at all levels, through Flinders University, have been asked to create a blog and update
it weekly. The purpose of this was to assess what they have learnt during each week and at
the same time for us to reflect on whether the learning objectives for the topic were met. The
utilisation of the blogs was not only to assess what students have learned or they thought they
have learned, but also for us to assess ourselves on their learning outcomes.
Przemysław Marciniak,
Universi ty of Si lesia, Poland
“Bloodthirsty doctors, underground mice and annoying scholars:
Humour in the 12th century Byzantine satires”
To say that the Byzantines mostly mourned and wept but did not laugh is today a cliché. Despite
it, there is a growing number of studies on Byzantine humour found in chronicles, letters and
visual sources. Yet the most obvious genre – satire – remains almost untouched. To some extent
perhaps this is caused by a mistaken view of Byzantine satires as simple imitations of ancient,
mostly Lucianic, works.
The aim of my paper is to focus on the satires written in 12th century Byzantium – the time
of ‘Byzantium’s greatest literary flourishing’. The chosen group of texts consists of the works
authored by Theodore Prodromos, one of the most prolific Byzantine literati; the anonymous
Timarion; and two works modeled on Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. I intend to show how
humour in those texts was constructed and how ancient models and motifs were creatively
reused to express Byzantine Realien. I will also discuss to what extent humorous elements in
these satires may reflect the ‘Byzantine sense of humour’ in the 12th century.
Panayota Nazou
Un-framing politics: The Cultural Policies of Melina Mercouri, as the
minister for culture
Η ανακοίνωση αφορά στην πολιτισμική πολιτική της Μελίνας Μερκούρη ως υπουργού
πολιτισμού και επιστημών κατά την περίοδο 1984-1989. Στόχος της παρουσίασης είναι να
διερευνήσει τη διαδικασία μεταμόρφωσης της Μελίνας Μερκούρη από διεθνή σταρ του
κινηματογράφου, σε σύμβολο του καταδιωκόμενου καλλιτέχνη, σε φωνή της αντίστασης, σε
σύμβολο του αγωνιστή και υπερασπιστή της ατομικής και εθνικής της ελευθερίας, και κατ’
επέκταση σε οραματιστή και εφαρμοστή πολιτικών και πολιτισμικών προγραμμάτων με διεθνή
απήχηση. Παρά τις υπέρμετρες φιλοδοξίες και τις αδυναμίες της, η πολιτισμική πολιτική
που διάρθρωσε η Μελίνα Μερκούρη, παραμένει μέχρι σήμερα ο κεντρικός πυρήνας κάθε
πολιτισμικής πρότασης που αρθρώνεται από το επίσημο ελληνικό κράτος.
22 23

Dimitris Paivanas
Babel Language Cent re, Athens
Un-framing the Civil War: Literary Prose, Political Identities and Historical
Revisionism in Contemporary Greece
Since the unceremonious end of the Greek Civil War (1943-1949) and throughout the
Metapolitefsi (1974-2008) various institutions in Greece have collaborated to establish
incompatible, yet one-sided, representations of the internecine conflict. These discursive
practices served national and international politics, but also helped to polarize Greek society
by forging political identities both during and after the Cold War. They also spawned a series
of literary works that questioned official Civil War historiography. This paper looks mainly at
two works of prose fiction by Thanassis Valtinos [Η κάθοδος των εννιά (1963) and Ορθοκωστά
(1994)] and examines the mutating critical responses to them from 1963 to 2012. The paper
aims to illustrate how literary prose continues to question the dominant discourse on the Greek
Civil War and how it challenged the certainties of leftist political identities in post-dictatorship
Greece. In the light of the heated discussions on the Civil War in which both of Valtinos’ texts
were involved in recent years, the paper also outlines the appropriation of the author’s work by
so-called ‘revisionist’ analysts of the internecine conflict.
Maria Palaktsoglou / Katherine Sutcliffe / Maria Shialis
Re-framing the ephemeral: Reports on the contemporary migration
experience through blogging
The examination of the migrants’ experience has traditionally involved two main sources – the
recording of oral histories, and the examination of written documents, including letters and
diaries. Although both of these sources have elements of the ephemeral, once the oral and
written personal stories are documented or archived, they become part of a permanent record.
Migrants of today record and communicate their experiences differently. A range of social
media platforms, including blogs, are now commonly used. These methods of recording
the migrant experience differ from the more traditional, in part because they are at risk of
disappearing as platforms are discontinued or accounts closed. In some political contexts,
these digital documents can even be removed from the electronic record by regimes who wish
to erase particular points of view.
This paper will explore how recent Greek migrants, who arrived in Australia after the onset of
the recent Global Financial Crisis, have chosen to represent their migration experience and the
areas which they consider important to share with their peers. A number of, publically available,
blogs are explored and a range of themes identified and analysed to form an understanding
of contemporary migration in general. This research study aims to examine the use of these
records in the broader field of migration studies and enriches the migration discourse.
Andonis Piperoglou
Reconceptualising early Greek Australia: Entangled allegiances, shifting
loyalties and the formation of an early Greek-Australian identity
In recent years the Greek crisis has underscored the multifaceted and complex presence
of Greeks in Australia. Indeed, as the Greek-Australian community currently experiences an
intergenerational shift from the post-war migration era, there is a growing need to re-examine
the historical place that Greeks carved out for themselves in Australia. Set within the milieu of
political events that occurred in, and between, Australia, Greece and the British Empire, this
paper documents how a distinctly Greek-Australian community was made in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Utilising material such as government correspondence, parliamentary
papers and the press, I examine the constitutive processes by which early Greek-Australian
settlers defined themselves within the shifting contours of White Australia. Early Greek-
Australians articulated the importance of historical bonds shared between Britain and Greece as
a tool to publicly identify with an emergent Australian nationalism. The representations made by
nascent Greek-Australian leaders often worked in tandem with the formation and reformulation
of Australian nation-building in which the ideals of colonial settlement, imperial allegiance,
respectable labour practices and ‘white’ racial fitness were key features of national inclusion. In
positioning their countrymen as suitable members of the emergent national polity, early Greek-
Australian leaders reworked and redefined aspects of their Hellenic heritage. In defence of their
national pride early Greek-Australian leaders transmitted a constructed ideology of cultural
continuity that envisioned Greeks to allegedly hold exemplary civilisational attributes which
permitted them a distinctive place within the anglocentric Australian nation. In this process,
their articulations of national inclusion offer us an important historical reading into pluralistic
expressions of cross-imperial and transnational identities. In paying particular attention to their
specifically Australian cultural idioms of British imperialism, European philhellenism, and the
constitutive processes of early Greek-Australian public conduct we can thus reflect on how early
Greek migrants identified with both Australia and Greece– two countries forever situated in the
geopolitical interstices of East and West.
Ryan Preston
Tan Tao Universi ty, Viet -Nam
The International Scope of Photis Kontoglou’s Worldview
Photis Kontoglou (1895-1965) is best known for his leading role in the revival of Byzantine
painting in modern Greece. Unlike that of many of his contemporaries, however, Kontoglou’s
revival program conformed closely both to the subject matter and style of earlier Byzantine art.
In carrying out his revival, Kontoglou sought to turn his back on the culture of Western Europe,
seeking in its place an idealized Greek medieval past which he saw threatened by the forces
of European modernity.Studies to date have tended to focus on this aspect of Kontoglou’s
work to the relative neglect of his ongoing ambivalent relationship with western European
culture. However, despite Kontoglou’s professed rejection of western influences, I argue that
24 25

the foundation of his aesthetic temperament and indeed overall worldview continued to be
informed by western European precedents over the course of his life. To take one example,
Kontoglou’s Byzantine revival can be seen as but the latest in a string of earlier medieval revival
movements, from the Pre-Raphaelites, to the Nazarenes, to the Russian Neo-Primitivists. By
focusing on the wider European context of Kontoglou’s work, we have a chance to evaluate
Kontoglou’s artistic legacy beyond the narrow strictures of an insular and inward-looking Greek
national movement that has contributed to an almost total ignorance of Kontoglou outside
Greece. The purpose of my paper, then, is to reveal the international scope of Kontoglou’s work
while offering alternate ways of viewing and interpreting it as a whole. To that end, my paper
will focus on the artistically fertile decade of 1930s, concentrating above all on a comparative
analysis of two works: Kontoglou’s home mural and City Hall mural.
Vassiliki Rapti
Harvard Universi ty
“Either of the Height or of the Depth”:
Nanos Valaoritis’ De-stereotyping of the “Greeks” in the Time of Crisis
If there is anyone who has consistently de-stereotyped Greek culture, de-mythologized, de-constructed
and ultimately reconstructed its imaginative potential, that person is Nanos Valaoritis
who has now been turned into a cosmopolitan “cultural phenomenon.” Always “present” in the
Greek scene no matter where he lived (Paris, London, Geneva, Oakland, California or Athens and
Nydri), the 93-year old now avant-garde Nanos Valaoritis, like a “horsefly,” kept paving the way
for new ways of seeing and radical perceptions of the self, especially as dictated by his desire
to re-examine the Ancients. Amidst the current crisis, Valaoritis indeed not only is “present” as a
public persona, but he also has initiated long debates about the causes and effects of the crisis,
especially since his open letter to the Greek Prime Minister Mr. Antonis Samaras, dated April 30,
2013, where he warned him about the dangerous effects of the increasingly appealing Neo-
Nazi party Golden Dawn. Moreover, four new books of his came out of the Greek crisis from
2010 to the present: Χρίσματα (2011), Ουρανός χρώμα βανίλιας (2011), Το Πικρό καρναβάλι
(2013) and Ή του ύψους ή του βάθους: Πρόσφατα άρθρα γύρω από τον πολιτισμό στην Ελλάδα
της κρίσης (2013). This presentation will pay particular attention to the last collection of articles
which present Valaoritis’s systematic exploration of the image of the Greeks as standing at the
extremes, “either of the height or of the depth,” throughout their long history, in an effort “to
eradicate the stereotypes against the Greek nation that so unjustly is deeply tormented,” as the
book itself claims. This presentation not only will elaborate on the main points that Valaorits
makes in this collection of articles, but more importantly, it will contextualize them within the
frame of his overall avant-garde contribution to the Greek Letters.
Sophia Sakellis
Red Hulk: A Modern Greek Tragedy of Dysfunction and Alienation
Red Hulk, a 2013 multi-award-winning Greek short film, by Asimina Proedrou, explores themes
of identity, nationalism, xenophobia, anger and fear. It is a hard-hitting exposé of a society in
decline, where frustration at the failing institutions gives way to racism, sexism, intolerance and
extreme violence in an effort to cleanse the community of the foreign element which is blamed
for all its dysfunction. With the absolute rupture between signifier and signified in the national
symbols, values, codes and traditions, the issue of identity has become narrowly defined, yet all-encompassing
and self-absorbing, resulting in the severing of ties with traditional supports such
as family, friends and colleagues. The inevitable alienation leads the individual to seek refuge
with a close-knit group of neo-Nazis linked to corrupt police, which operates under strict codes
of secrecy outside of the law, and ensures its longevity by binding its members in a web of ultra-nationalist
criminality.
Cheryl Simpson
Kendimata and national identity: is it all in the past?
Throughout much of the period of modern Greece there have been specific times of social,
political and economic concerns where the role of national identity comes to the forefront of
public debate. This is particularly the case during times of upheaval or rapid change when the
affirmation of ‘Greekness’ has been employed by the intelligentsia and upper class. The 19th
century with the evolution of the Modern Greek state, the Asia Minor disaster of the 20s and
30s, the world economic crisis of the post world war period of the 40s and 50s, were all times
when Greek heritage and identity were questioned and promoted in a particular way. During
these times the arts and crafts have played a fundamental role in promoting the dominant view
of Greek identity at a particular historical juncture. This paper critically examines the contribution
of “kendimata” to national identity in the past and questions what role can kendimata play in
society today.
Andreas Triantafyllou
The Universi ty of Edinburgh
Unframing “C. P. Cavafy”: The Case of Lou Harrison’s Scenes from Cavafy
2013 marked 150 years since C. P. Cavafy’s birth and 80 years since his death and on this
occasion there has been an abundance of events honoring C. P. Cavafy both in Greece and
outside Greece, despite the persistence of the Greek crisis. Better yet, because exactly of the
Greek crisis, Cavafy has been re-appropriated in order for people to read/explain the crisis in
Greece and Cyprus, as in the characteristic reading of his poem, “In a small European Colony
circa 200 A.D., or simply, in order to boost the Greek people’s low morale, as in the case of the
26 27

circulation of his lines on the public buses in Athens, an initiative of the Onassis Foundation. In
this presentation, I approach “C. P. Cavafy” differently, in a manner that transcends all kinds of
crisis and all Eurocentric approaches, an approach which yet –I believe- does justice to C. P.
Cavafy. I propose then to approach “C. P. Cavafy” as a performative genre that expands him up
until the area of the South Indian Ocean --characteristic for its intermingling of different cultures,
religions, and civilizations and thus reminiscent of the Hellenistic World--. I propose to do this
by means of the model of Lou Harrison’s Scenes from Cavafy gamelan-based music rendition
which, in the end, elevates Cavafy to an ecumenical level. In my presentation, I will demonstrate
the specifics pertaining to Lou Harrison’s approach to Cavafy and I will draw conclusions
about the lessons we learn from his daring and innovative experiment with the Alexandrian
poet. By offering his aesthetic view on “C. P. Cavafy,” Lou Harrison paves the way for other
artists to follow his path and spread Cavafy’s work to parts of the globe that were not previously
considered as conveying his “natural” readership and audience.
Michael Tsianikas/ Μιχάλης Τσιανίκας
Καβάφης 400 Μ.Χ: Κοσμοπολιτισμός /Κοσμοθεωρία
Στην εισήγηση θα εξεταστεί η περίπλοκη σχέση κοσμοπολιτισμού και κοσμοθεωρίας. Θα
αντληθούν παραδείγματα από την ποίηση του Καβάφη για να φανεί η λεπτή σχέση των δύο
εννοιών και κάποτε η μεγάλη τους διάσταση. Θα φανεί ότι σαφέστατα ο Καβάφης πριμοδοτεί
τη δεύτερη. Πάνω εκεί θα στηθεί ένα ευρύτερο θεωρητικό σχήμα που αφορά ευρύτερα
φαινόμενα στάσεων και επιλογών αναφορικά με τις δυο έννοιες. Θα εξηγηθεί επίσης το 400 Μ.Χ
του τίτλου.
Erma Vassiliou
Aust ral ian Nat ional Universi ty
Semantic change in Byzantine Greek
Everything is perpetually in a stage of change and so is language. Anna Comnena’s the Alexiad,
one of the largest and best works of all times, written in Greek, is a strong motivation for
research in Language change. The present work provides examples on semantic change from
Comnena’s magnum opus.
This is part three of Language change in Greek, in 11th -13th centuries Byzantium. Part four,
five and lastly six are now ready for future discussions. Semantic change in Greek, particularly
when the examples are drawn from a number of 12th and 13th centuries “Pseudo-classical”
documents, as labeled by many philologists, is of great importance from the view point of
semantic change in general and, also, when studied within the frame of grammaticalization. The
latter is discussed in other parts of this study. The present work discovers and analyzes shifts of
meanings (altered, removed or added), it provides examples of shifts through words presented
in a more detailed discussion (words such as κρίμα, judgment, κύων, σκύλος, dog), it reveals
obsolete as well as obsolescent words and it lastly exhibits a list of interesting words, found in
the Alexiad, and their semantic evolution though the centuries.
George Vassilacopoulos & Toula Nicolacopoulos
La Trobe Universi ty, Melbourne
Nothing in between: Crisis, vision and death in the art of Goya and
Michelakakis
In this paper we explore the meaning of crisis in current times by focusing on the work of the
artist, George Michelakakis. In particular we propose a reading of work he created in Australia
and Greece from the 1970s onwards. We suggest that Michelakakis responds to the project that
Goya can be said to have initiated with the production of The Third of May 1808 and, arguably,
completes this project in so far as the latter calls for art’s response to the gathering of history as
exemplified in the French Revolution.
Maria Zarimis
Universi ty of New South Wales
“Hellenic continuity and nationhood”
This paper is part of my current research on nationhood and race in the Greek state from a
post-evolutionary perspective. While scholarship has been extensive, examining diachronically
the socio-political factors that have shaped and characterized the “Hellenic ideals and ideology”
of modern Greece, it is only in recent times that the discourse on the involvement of biological
factors has intensified, both academically and in the public arena.
In this paper I will be investigating some of the biological ideas on nation and race appropriated
by a number of Greek intellectuals in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and how
some of these ideas have re-emerged, in various forms, in the current climate in Greece.
Zdenko Zlatar
Being ‘El Greco’ In Toledo: Kazantzakis And El Greco
The Elective Affinity of Being Greek in Voluntary Exile
Kazantzakis’s own (kind of) autobiography is titled “The Report to Greco”. He obviously identified
with the great painter not only because he was a fellow Cretan and thus a Greek (El Greco),
but because both of them spent considerable parts of their lives in self-imposed kind of exile,
i.e. a voluntary absence from their native Crete. In case of El Greco it was his quest for artistic
greatness and immortality that took him away from his native island first to Venice, then to
Rome, and finally to Toledo where he spent the last thirty-seven years of his life (1577-1614).
Kazantzakis chose a voluntary self-exile from postwar Greece, mainly because of political
disagreements with the conservative governments in Athens, but also because the south of
France had greater appeal for him as an international artist and France afforded him a stage from
which to launch his major novels. In terms of Max Weber, the two had an elective affinity for
self-imposed exile.
This report will concentrate mainly on El Greco’s negotiation of his own Greekness in Castilian-dominated
culture of Toledo and his relations with fellow artists, humanists, and Greeks.
28 29

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The members of the Department of Modern Greek would like
to express their gratitude to -
The Head of the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sydney
Professor Jeffrey Riegel for his support and encouragement.
Our sincere thanks also to Rosemary Go, Michael McCabe, Shauna Crick and
Alessandro Cioni for their patience and assistance during the preparation of the
conference.
The artistic skills and technical expertise of TWO MINDS graphic atelier for the
design and layout of this program.
Finally, the printing of the program would not have been possible without the
dedication and friendship of Mr Nic Valis from
Blink Print, Creative Design and Print
Photo COVER credits
Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas , “Large Landscape of Hydra” (1955)
http://www.eikastikon.gr/zografiki/theofilos.html
30 31
Yannis Moralis, Two Friends (1946)

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