PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Program in Hellenic Studies
Eyal Ginio (Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Michael Reynolds (Department of Near Eastern Studies)
Place: Room 103, Scheide Caldwell House, Princeton University
Recent studies in social-cultural history underscore the modern war experience as one in which the collective and the individual merge together in an all-encompassing encounter. This convergence can affect, question, or reshape social and political structures and shared collective identities, as well as individual self-identities or sub-identities of small communities. This encounter is not molded merely according to the ability and coercive force of the modern state to superimpose its will upon its citizens, but rather by an ongoing negotiation between the state, through its various agencies, and the citizens, in order to win their support and willingness to participate in the war effort. The various propaganda means used by the state combined with diversified responses "from below," shape the cultural arena of the war. In this paper it will be argued that the Balkan wars presented a major watershed and change in the relationship between the Ottoman state and the different groups of its citizens. It will also demonstrate how contemporary Ottoman literature, press, ceremonies, and propaganda items, can assist our understanding of the Balkan wars, as an attempt to mobilize the non-Muslims as part of the Ottoman nation, its eventual failure, and the effect of military defeat on the state's collective identity, especially with regard to the Christians' position within the imagined Ottoman collective.
Eyal Ginio (eginio@Princeton.EDU) is Lecturer in Turkish Studies at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University in 1999, with a dissertation entitled "Marginal People in the Ottoman City: The Case of Salonica during the Eighteenth Century." In 1999-2000 he was awarded a Rothschild Post-Doctoral Fellowship, which he spent at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, and in 2000-2001 he held a Lady Davis Fellowship at the Hebrew University. He served as a vice-director of the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Research of Oriental Jewry between 2001-2003. His research and publications have focused on the social history of the Ottoman Empire, with a particular emphasis on eighteenth century Thessaloniki. He is currently working on a book on Ottoman society during the Balkan Wars.
David Kennedy (University of Western Australia; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Glen W. Bowersock (Institute for Advanced Study)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
Northwest Jordan is a "virtual island," isolated by geography on all four sides and looking equally east to the world of the nomad and west to the Mediterranean world. Yet it is a region which flourished during the Long Classical Millennium (circa 4th c. B.C. to 8th c. A.D.) to an extent not again reached till the mid-twentieth century, developing a distinctive culture. Here, too, one finds historical and archaeological data of an intensity and quality superior to probably any other region in the Near East except Israel. The availability of remote sensing data can underwrite a detailed interpretation and explanation of settlement history over some 1.200 years.
David Kennedy (dlkennedy@princeton.edu) is a graduate of the universities of Manchester (1974) and Oxford (1980) and has taught at the University of Sheffield, Boston University. Since 1990 he teaches at the University of Western Australia where he is a Professorial Fellow in Roman History and Archaeology. He has been a Tweedie Exploration Fellow (University of Edinburgh, 1978); Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1986/7 and 2004) and Summer Visitor (2005); Fulbright Senior Travel Scholar (1986/7); Cotton Fellow (2004/5). His research interests lie in the history and archaeology of the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad Near East. He is the author/co-author and editor/co-editor of nine books and about 100 articles, and chapters. The most recent books are The Roman Army in Jordan, London (2004) and (with R. Bewley) Ancient Jordan from the Air, London (2004).
Eberhard L. Faber Lecture
Isabelle LeRoy-Jay Lemaistre (Musee du Louvre)
101 McCormick Hall
Reception to follow in the museum
Sponsored by the Department of French and Italian and The Art Museum
Stan Draenos (Independent Scholar; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Neophytos Loizides (Department of Politics and Program in Hellenic Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
Anti-Americanism is purportedly one of the critical factors affecting the relations of the United States with the rest of the world. But what, exactly, is anti-Americanism? Is it an ideology and, if so, what is the nature and what are the uses of this ideology? Is it an irrational prejudice used by political elites to demonize the United States, in order to manipulate their own citizens for domestic purposes? Or is it a branding tool used by American political elites to demonize those who oppose U.S. policies in order to divert public attention from the content of those policies? Andreas Papandreou, former prime minister of Greece (1981-89 and 1993-96), was widely regarded as one of the most skilled and successful practitioners of the politics of anti-Americanism. Papandreou's alleged anti-Americanism will be analyzed to explore some of the broader questions about the nature of this phenomenon.
Stan Draenos (sdraenos@Princeton.EDU) received a Ph.D. (1978) in political science from York University, where he taught for 14 years before returning to Greece to serve as a consultant (1982-1986) to the Greek Secretariat for Press and Information. He was the editor-in-chief of the review 30 Days: Greece This Month. Since 1986, he has worked mainly as a communications consultant and a feature article, business, and speech writer. He is the author of Freuds Odyssey: Psychoanalysis and the End of Metaphysics (Yale University Press, 1982). During the last two and a half years he has been working on a biography of Andreas Papandreou.
Sponsored by the Program in Hellenic Studies and the Program in Visual Arts
James Stewart Theatre, 185 Nassau Street
Admission free
(English subtitles)
The first in a projected trilogy by the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, "The Weeping Meadow" tells the story of Greek history from the close of World War I to the aftermath of World War II, not in broad, historic strokes, but through the sufferings of one emblematic, almost mythical family. Though its story incorporates themes from myth, epic and tragedy, the plot is among the least important elements of "The Weeping Meadow." Instead, the film is a stately procession of enigmatic, starkly beautiful images that seem to gesture toward a mythological world outside the movie itself. At nearly three hours, this is not a film for the impatient entertainment-seeker. But for those willing to enter into its grave, melancholic rhythms, "The Weeping Meadow" is a beautiful and devastating meditation on war, history and loss. -- Dana Stevens, The New York Times
This film screening is in conjunction with VIS344/HLS344 "Special Topics in Film History: The Image of Greece in European Cinema" taught by Professor P. Adams Sitney
American Institute of Archaeology and Department of Classics Lecture
Professor T. Leslie Shear, Jr. (Department of Art and Archaeology)
010 East Pyne Hall
Reception to follow