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The 27TH MGSA SYMPOSIUM

13-16 October, 2022 · York University, Toronto, Canada

2022 MGSA Symposium Schedule and Receptions

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Session 1
5:00-6:45 p.m.

Panel 1A: Discourses of Greek and Greekness  Room# AE 003

Moderator: Artemis Leontis ·University of Michigan

Joanna Eleftheriou ·Christopher Newport University
Greek American Women in Education: An Ethnographic Account 

Katherine Kelaidis ·National Hellenic Museum
“As a Greek, I Understand Freedom:” Greek Americans, Race, and the Battle over Slavery in America

Maria Kaliambou ·Yale University
“A Small History to Tell:” Greek American Albums as Sources of Local Historiography

Theodosios Polychronis ·University of Aix-Marseille
Classics, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies or Hellenic Studies? 

 

Panel 1B: Greek Statistics Room# AE 005

Organizer: Dimitris Antoniou ·Columbia University

Moderator: Jonathan Swarts ·Purdue University Northwest

Dimitris Antoniou ·Columbia University
Numbers that Tell and Hide: The Athens Mosque, Political Cost, and the Ambivalence of Quantification

Soo-Young Kim ·Princeton University
Enumerating the Economy

Rebekah Rutkoff ·New Jersey Institute of Technology
Double Economy: The Temenos and Film Futures

 

Awards Presentation and Reception
Schulich Executive Dining Room

7:00 p.m. Welcome

Tom Papademetriou, MGSA President,  Stockton University


Elsa Amanatidou, Brown University & Neovi Karakatsanis, Indiana University South Bend, Program Committee Chairs

Sakis Gekas, Local Arrangements Committee Chair, York University, Toronto

Vangelis Calotychos, MGSA Executive Director,  Brown University


Karen Emmerich,  Princeton University - In Memory & Appreciation of Edmund (Mike) Keeley


Edmund Keeley Book Prize to Eleni Kefala for her book The Conquered: Byzantium and America on the Cusp of Modernity (Dumbarton Oaks, 2020), presented by Elizabeth Davis, Chair.

Elizabeth Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize to Peter Constantine for his translation of Eleni Kefala’s collection of poetry, Time Stitches (Deep Vellum), presented by Joanna Eleftheriou, Chair.

John O. Iatrides Best Dissertation Prize to Yiorgo Topalidis (University of Florida) for his thesis, The Whitening Process Model: Forging an Anti-Racist Praxis for Descendants of European Immigrants in the United States, presented by Evdoxios Doxiadis.

Vasiliki Karagiannaki Prize for the Best Edited Volume in Modern Greek Studies to Yiorgos Anagnostou, Yiorgos D. Kalogeras and Theodora Patrona for their edited volume, Redirecting Ethnic Singularity: Italian Americans and Greek Americans in Conversation, published by Fordham University Press in the Critical Studies in Italian America Series, 2021, presented by Artemis Leontis, Chair.

S. Victor Papacosma Graduate Student Essay Prize to Rebecca Shoup (University of California, San Diego) for her paper entitled “Women on the Move: Prostitution on Two Nineteenth-Century Eastern Mediterranean Islands,” presented by Nektaria Klapaki, Chair.

 

8 – 10 p.m. Reception
Wine and hors d’oeuvres

 

Friday, October 14, 2022

Registration: Accolade East Lobby

Morning - Session 2
9:00-10:45 a.m.

Panel 2A: New Readings, Old Texts Room# AE 005

Moderator: Elsa Amanatidou ·Brown University

Maria Boletsi ·Leiden University & University of Amsterdam
Ηaunted Modernity: Cavafy’s Noonday Demon

Claudio Russello ·University of Oxford
The Odyssey Ends in the 1960s: The Case of Margarita Lyberaki's and Stelios Xefloudas’ Ulysses

 

Panel 2B: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Historical Forces  Room# AE 007

Moderator: Tom Papademetriou ·Stockton University

Evdoxios Doxiadis ·Simon Fraser University
Islamic Law and the Modern Greek State in the 19th Century

Alexander Harmantas ·York University, Toronto
Historical and Contemporary Interactions between Aromanian and Greek Identity, 19th c. – Present

Charalampos Minasidis · University of Texas, Austin  “The First Baptism of Fire in Battle is very Difficult and often Makes you Feel Ashamed:” Greek Soldiers Enduring the Greek-Turkish War

 Christopher Kinley ·The Ohio State University
The Italian Occupation of Epirus: Regional Ambitions and the Ethno-Engineering of a Region, 1916-1920

 

Panel 2C: Political and Social Transnationalism  Room# AE 009

Moderator: Neovi Karakatsanis ·Indiana University South Bend

Iason-Nikolaos Rodopoulos ·York University, Toronto
The Marshall Plan and Greek Industry: The Financing of Peiraiki-Patraiki and Titan Cement

Panagiota Paspali ·University of Thessaly
Hashtag Activism During COVID-19: Anti-Femicide Activism and the MeToo Movement in Greece

 

10:45-11:00 a.m. Break

 

Late Morning - Session 3
11:00 – 12:45 p.m.

Panel 3A: The Greek Experience in Canada Room# AE 005

Moderator: Sakis Gekas ·York University, Toronto

Alexandros Balasis ·York University, Toronto
Greek Migration to Canada During the 1950s and 1960s: The Canadian and Greek Migration Policies and the Immigrants’ Place Within Them

Emmanouela Tisizi ·McGill University
Greek Heritage Language Teachers’ Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future of Greek Education in Quebec

Theodore Xenophontos ·York University, Toronto
Film as History: Struggling to Create a Community-Based Audiovisual Archive Amidst a Pandemic

 

Panel 3B: The Contact Zones of Poetry  Room# AE 007

Moderator: Vangelis Calotychos ·Brown University

Nektaria Klapaki ·University of Washington
On Aesthetic and Political Transnationalism: The Transnational Imagination of Seferis in Mythistorema

George Charitatos ·University of Patras
Aspects of Myth in the Greek Poetry of 1970’s Generation: Transformations of Female Mythological Figures in the Poetry of Athena Papadaki

Dimitrios Cheilaris ·University of Patras
The Reception of the Homeric Intertext in the Poetry of Stavros Vavouris (1925-2008)

 

Panel 3C: Cyprus, Past and Present  Room# AE 009

Moderator: Elizabeth Davis ·Princeton University

Georgios Argiantopoulos ·Royal Holloway of London & University of London
Unfolding Greekness and Cypriotness: The Cypriot Brotherhood of Alexandria at the Turn of the 20th Century

George Kazamias & Maria Panayiotou ·University of Cyprus
Public Sector Salaries, Prices and Disposable Income in Colonial Cyprus, c. 1880-c.1920

Harrison Blackman ·Independent Scholar
City in Amber: Competing Visions for the Future of Varosha, Cyprus

 

Lunch
Schulich Executive Dining Room
12:45 – 2:30 p.m.

1:15 – 2:15 p.m. Lunchtime special session panels: 

Special Session I: The Greek Digital Journal Archive, organized by Rebecka Lindau ·University of Cincinnati  Room# AE 009

 

Special Session II : Rethinking Modern Greek Studies: The Shifting Ground of the Field within, through, and beyond the Pandemic, organized by Kristina Gedgaudaitė  Room# AE 011

 

 

Afternoon - Session 4
2:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Panel 4A: Greeks Breaking Barriers  Room# AE 005

Moderator: Yiorgos Anagnostou ·The Ohio State University

Yiorgo Topalidis ·University of Florida
The Whitening Process Model: Decoupling Whiteness from White Supremacy through an Examination of Ottoman Greek Immigrant Identity Construction in the United States

Aphrodite Boukidis · Simon Fraser University [coauthored with Konstantina Zoehrer - Independent Scholar]
Diaspora Changemakers: Exploring the Role of the Greek Diaspora Who Moved to Greece to Contribute to Social Change, Innovation and Impact

Elaine Thomopoulos ·Independent Scholar
“Women Not Allowed”: The History and Development of the Greek Women’s University Club 

 

Panel 4B: Revolutionaries of the Nineteenth Century  Room# AE 007

Moderator: Evdoxios Doxiadis ·Simon Fraser University

Vaso Seirinidou ·National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
"Ζητώ Εκδίκησιν και Δικαιοσύνην:" Seeking for Justice in Revolutionary Greece

Yusuf Karabicak ·University of Mainz
Being a Moreot: Kocabaşıs Between Morea and Constantinople Before the Revolution

Rebecca Shoup ·University of California, San Diego
Women On the Move: Prostitution on Kerkyra and Syros in the Nineteenth Century

Naz Vardar ·Simon Fraser University
Gender and Transgression in Apokries and Baklahorani Festivities in Late-Ottoman Istanbul

 

Panel 4C: Configurations of Care in Contemporary Greek Life: Sites, Histories, Discourses, Temporalities  Room# AE 009

Organizer: Elizabeth Davis ·Princeton University

Moderator: Dimitris Antoniou · Columbia University

Neni Panourgiá ·Columbia University
How to Evacuate a Concept Care) Without Anyone Noticing Because You Invoke a Crisis that You Call Leros)

Elizabeth Davis ·Princeton University
Earthly Material and Supple Flesh: Care for the Dead in Times of Change 

 

 

4:30 – 5:30 p.m.    Graduate Students Mixer and Discussion →
Organized by the MGSA Graduate Studies Committee  Room# AE 011

 

Keynote Address · Sandra Faire & Ivan Fecan Theatre, Main Floor, Accolade East

5:45 – 7:30 p.m.

Welcoming Remarks

Tom Papademetriou, MGSA President, Stockton University

Sakis Gekas, Associate Professor, Hellenic Heritage Foundation Chair

JJ McMurtry, Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

Lyndon Martin, Acting Provost & VP Academic

Sandra Gionas, Chair, Communications, & PR Marketing, Hellenic Heritage Foundation


Christina Koulouri

Professor of Modern and Contemporary History & Rector

Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens

“Greek Centennials: Commemorating Victories and Defeats"


7:30 -9:00 p.m. .:. Accolade East Building, CIBC Lobby

Dinner


9:00-10:30 p.m. .:. Sandra Faire & Ivan Fecan Theatre, Main Floor, Accolade East

Performance: KUNÉ - Canada's Global Orchestra

 

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Morning - Session 5
9:00 – 10:45 a.m.

Panel 5A: Intertextual Dialogues, Cultural Exchanges  Room# AE 005

Moderator: Gregory Jusdanis ·The Ohio State University

Polyvia Parara ·University of Maryland, College Park
Liberalism Versus Democracy in Koraes' Prolegomena on Lycurgus' "Kata Leokratous" and Contaxaki's Classical Bouquet.

Christopher Jotischky-Hull ·Brown University
Greek Independence Through a Roman Lens: The Case of Dimitrios Vikelas and Loukis Laras

Simos Zenios ·University of California Los Angeles
Can the People Listen? The Politics of Romantic Media in Polylas' “Lectures to the People”

 

Panel 5B:  Contours of Memory and Knowledge  Room# AE 007

Moderator: Othon Alexandrakis ·York University

Dimitrios Machlouta ·McGill University & EHESS
Contested Memories, Entangled Histories of the Greek Revolution: The Legacy of “1821” in Montréal and Paris During the Junta Years

Nikola Tohma · Czech Academy of Sciences, Masaryk Institute and Archives
The Memory of Greek Civil War Refugees in Czechoslovakia: The Role of Martyrdom and Victimhood in the Formation of the Diaspora’s Identity

Vasiliki Vasiloudi ·University of Crete
Greece through the Aesthetics and Poetics of the Political Refugees' Children’s Magazine Pyrsos ton Paidion 1961-1968)

Alexandros Papageorgiou ·University of Thessaly
Politics of Knowledge in Project Networks or How Experts Reaffirm Europe’s Periphery

 

Panel 5C: The Subterranean Paradigm: Mutating the Athens Metro and Repairing EMST  Room# AE 011

Organizer: Alexander Strecker ·Duke University

Moderator: Penelope Papailias ·University of Thessaly

Alexander Strecker ·Duke University
Fix & Repair: Shifting from the Exposure of Trauma to the Reassembly of Fragments

Petros Moris ·University of Thessaly
The Athenian Underground: Subterranean Imaginaries of Memory and Progress

 

Break: 10:45 – 11:00 a.m.

 

Late Morning - Session 6
11:00 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Panel 6A: Contested Spaces of Identity and Otherness  Room# AE 005

Moderator: Katerina Zacharia ·Loyola Marymount University

Vassiliki Tsitsopoulou ·Indiana University
Another Foustanela Film? L. Mercanton’s Phroso (1921) and the International Entertainment Marketing of Greek Rebellion

Harry Karahalios ·Duke University
Nation and the Performativity of Greekness by Afro-Greeks

Yiorgos Evgenios Douliakas ·University of Amsterdam
With the Bees or With the Wolves: Horrific Intimacies in a Trial in Climax

 

Panel 6B: Neighborhood Life in the Greek Post-War Diaspora  Room# AE 007

Organizer: George Kouvaros ·University of New South Wales

Moderator: Panayiotis League ·Florida State University

Alexandra Siotou ·University of Thessaly
On Park Avenue: Tracing the Trajectories of Greek Immigrants in Montreal

Nicholas Doumanis ·University of New South Wales
The Lure of the Gipo/Κήπο: From Sydney’s Inner City to its Suburbs

George Kouvaros ·University of New South Wales
Diasporic Visibility in Sydney’s Post-War Greek Neighborhoods

Andonis Piperoglou ·University of Melbourne
‘Little Greece’ or Multicultural Hub?: The Politics of Place-Naming in Sydney’s Marrickville

 

Panel 6C: Economic Practices in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries  Room# AE 009

Moderator: Tassos Anastassiadis ·McGill University

Paris Papamichos Chronakis ·Royal Holloway, University of London
The Business of War: Contraband Trade and Post-Imperial Allegiances in Greek Macedonia, 1914-1918

Dimitrios Mitsopoulos ·Freie Universität Berlin & Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Contraband Trade During WWI in Thessaloniki: Local, Regional and Transnational Dimensions

Grigorios Antoniou ·National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The Industrial Elite of Athens, 1945-1980

 

1:00 – 2:45 p.m. Lunch
Schulich Executive Dining Room

1:30 – 2:30 p.m. Lunchtime special sessions:

Special Session III: After the War was Over: 1922 and its Legacies  Room# AE 009

 

Special Session IV: Cooking as Teaching, Greece as a Culinary Text  Room# AE 011

 

Afternoon - Session 7
3:00 – 4:45 

Panel 7A: Revisiting Philhellenism and 1821: Historiography and New Areas of Research in the Digital Age  Room# AE 005

Organizer: Michalis Sotiropoulos ·British School at Athens

Moderator: Nikolas Kakkoufa ·Columbia University

Michalis Sotiropoulos ·British School at Athens
British Philhellenism Reconsidered: Interrogating the Archives

Amalia Kakissis [coauthored with Felicity Crowe]·British School at Athens
Digital Philhellenism: The George Finlay Collection and the Challenges of Going Digital for Modern Greek Studies 

 

Panel 7B: Performance and Composition across Time and Space  Room# AE 007

Moderator: Joanna Eleftheriou ·Christopher Newport University

Panayotis League ·Florida State University
Cretan Chronotopes: Being the Syrtos Over Time and in Place

April Kalogeropoulos Householder ·University of Maryland, Baltimore County & Yona Stamatis · University of Illinois, Springfield
Singing Greek America: Anabouboula and the Defiant Musical Construction of Self

Amanda Kubic · University of Michigan
Choreographing the Modern Χορός: Intersecting Discourses of Nationalism and Hellenism in the “Greek Dance” of Koula Pratsika and Martha Graham 

Alexandra Mourgou ·National Technical University of Athens & University Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne
Cultural Identities and Musical Geographies: From the Multi-Ethnic Eastern Mediterranean to the Places of Rebetiko in Piraeus

 

Panel 7C : Race, Class and Ethnicity in Contemporary Greece  Room# AE 009

Moderator: Neni Panourgiá ·Columbia University

Anna Karakatsouli · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Culture Wars: Far-Right Publishing in Greece Since 1974

Pantelis Promponas ·University of Thessaly
  Raison of Death: Rationalizing Border Deaths at the EU’s Frontier


Saturday Evening: Explore and enjoy the sights in Toronto, Canada. Consider a "Greektown on the Danforth" Walking Tour which will explore Greektown, from its foundations in faith and family to the evolution of today’s businesses and restaurants." From 6 until 7 p.m., meet at Pape Subway Station, 743 Pape Avenue Toronto. Let us know if you'll join us.

Sunday, October 16, 2022


8:30 – 9:30 a.m. MGSA Business Meeting open to all MGSA members Room# AE 002

9:30-11:00 a.m. MGSA Executive Board Meeting Room# AE 002