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Synthesis
6 (2013)
Call for papers
Hellenism
Unbound
Efterpi Mitsi
and Amy Muse (Issue
editors)
In 1997, Artemis Leontis proclaimed that “Romantic
Hellenism has lost its charm.” But if scholars of Modern
Greek Studies had been wondering what might lie “beyond
Hellenicity,” in the last decade English, German, French,
and American literary and cultural studies have
experienced a Hellenic revival. Just a few examples of
recent scholarship would include indigenous Hellenism,
transnational Hellenism, connections between
literary and archaeological excavations, women writers
and Victorian Hellenism, Hellenism and postcolonialism,
black classicism, and the history of race studies from
the invention of “white, European” Greeks in the
eighteenth century to the creation of American “white
ethnics.”
Indeed, Hellenism has flourished in so many directions
that James Porter has recently characterized it as “a
baggy, questionable idea that eludes definition,” a
concept “burdened with more meaning than it can
coherently hold.” The deconstruction it received in the
1990s from Vassilis Lambropoulos and Stathis Gourgouris,
among others, may have left it even more unstable as a
concept, but Hellenism is perhaps even more full of
possibilities today.
Can Hellenism be unbound from the binary perceptions of
East and West, civilization and barbarism? Or unbound
from the holds of academic disciplines (Classics,
English literature, archaeology);
nations (Britain, Germany); genres (the travel essay,
the lyric poem), to become something altogether new?
This issue of Synthesis is being conceptualized
at a specific cultural moment when the modern nation of
Greece has been in the news, reaching far outside the
bounds of academia. Will this change Hellenism? Is there
a new Philhellenism arising or
are old
prejudices rekindled?
We invite contributions that engage with the imaginative
and performative representations of Hellenism in
modernity, from the late eighteenth century to the
present. We are particularly interested in essays that
unbind Hellenism from its usual holds, whether those are
disciplinary, national, aesthetic, political,
theoretical, or formal.
Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:
-
Re-inventing Hellenism in
the 21st century: new approaches, definitions
-
European Philhellenism:
alternative histories, how Europe has been shaped by
philhellenism, new imaginings of philhellenism in
Europe
-
Travelling Hellenism:
theories of travel, newly recovered works, tourism,
commemorative sites and rituals
-
The permeable borders of
Hellenism: nationalism, transnationalism,
cosmopolitanism, diaspora
-
Hellenism and gender / the
gender of Hellenism: women writers and the classics,
recovering female Hellenists, gendering the study of
Hellenism
-
Indigenous Hellenism
and
critiques of philhellenism
-
Aesthetics of Hellenism:
Hellenism and form (the travel essay, the memoir,
the novel, new or hybrid genres), Hellenism and
genre—intersections of literature, art, and
archaeology
-
Politics of Hellenism: (phil)Hellenism
and Orientalism, Hellenism and postcolonialism,
Hellenism and notions of race, reconsidering
the connection of
Hellenism and Eurocentrism
-
Disillusionment with
Hellenism: revaluations of the role of the influence
of Greek culture on Western society, heretical
Hellenism
Detailed proposals (800-1,000 words) for articles of
6,000-7,000 words and a short bio (up to 300 words), as
well as all inquiries regarding this issue should be
sent to both issue editors: Efterpi Mitsi (emitsi@enl.uoa.gr)
and Amy Muse (ammuse@stthomas.edu).
Deadlines:
1 December 2011 submission of abstracts
1 February 2012 notification of acceptance
1 October 2012 submission of articles |
