PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Program in Hellenic Studies
Spiros Tegos (University of Crete, Greece; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Peter A. Meyers (Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, Institute for Advanced Study)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
Cosmopolitanism during the second half of the eighteenth century was tantamount to a conception of European Enlightenment as a status quo built on “French manners and English liberty”(John Pocock) within the framework of ‘commercial societies.’ Therefore the cosmopolitan ideal between the English and French revolutions was shaped by the project of expansion of commercial sociability regulated by the mechanism variously expressed as manners, politeness, taste, or civility. However, this conception cannot be properly understood unless integrated into its context: modern ‘European civility’ is conceived as a remedy against religious and political fanaticism. From this point of view, Adam Smith’s philosophy instils some ambiguity in this cosmopolitan project by initiating a double-edged assessment of the commercial, ‘civilized’ society. To be sure, Smith offers a full-blown theory of manners. Nonetheless, this contribution to the doctrine of modern manners encompasses a fierce critique of his ‘commercial’ modernity. The language of virtue and corruption, although it has been set apart from its traditional, ‘republican’ context – the patriot virtue – remains a crucial component of his theory. His so-called liberalism – the unambiguous positive moral and political role of the endless expansion of commercial structures – should consequently receive some qualifications. One can possibly draw a parallel between this twofold project and certain aspects of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment.
Spiros Tegos (stegos@princeton.edu) is a scholar of moral and political philosophy who teaches political theory at the Panteion University, Athens, and in the Philosophy Department of the University of Crete. His doctoral dissertation (“The concept of social sentiments in early modern political philosophy,” Paris X, Nanterre, 2001) is an analysis of the concepts of sympathy and friendship as far as they play a key role in the foundation of political economy and have led philosophers to think in an original way about the transition from ethics to economics. His other research interests relate to the French “Rousseauiste” tradition of social ties as emotional ties based on compassion, and of cosmopolitanism as a common, though problematic, background of the European Enlightenment. He was visiting scholar at the Harvard Center for European Studies, 2005-07, and he is currently working on a project about the neglected legacy of the problem of authority in Adam Smith as a key concept in the understanding of civility within the framework of the European Enlightenment.
Directors: Gabriellino D’Annunzio and Mario Ronconi (1921)
Based on the play La Nave (1908) by Gabriele D’Annunzio
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
A digital recording by the Department of Histories and Methods for Cultural Heritage Preservation of the University of Bologna of the restored edition of the film by Cineteca del Comune di Bologna. The restored film was based upon a negative on nitrate support of the Cineteca Italiana di Milano and upon a positive of the Spanish version of the Filmoteca Española. The text of the captions is a translation of the Spanish ones with the help of the 1908 edition of D’Annunzio’s play.
Synopsis of the film: The film is probably the first cinematographic representation of the History of Venice. A tragedy marks the origins of Venice: Basiliola, daughter of Orso Faledro, a pagan tribune removed and blinded by his Christian antagonists, the Gràtici family, stages a cruel revenge. Basiliola, full of resentment, uses her beauty and sensuality to push the two Gràtici brothers, Marco, the new tribune, and Sergio, the bishop, into a fratricidal duel. Marco kills Sergio, but Basiliola is sentenced to the same penalty to which was condemned her father. After the punishment of Basiliola, Marco sails toward Egypt on a huge ship, to bring back to Venice the remains of St. Mark. In La Nave the imaginary of Byzantium is intermingled with Italian Fascist ideology. D’Annunzio created an emulator of the Byzantine empress Theodora, Basiliola, a new Salome who corrupts the integrity of Italian people using her dance. For Italian Fascist ideology the New Byzantium, represented often by Paris, is oriental and effeminate, an anti-Rome opposed to the Fascist aesthetic ideal of virility.
Fotios Baroutsos (Ionian University; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Maurizio Viroli (Department of Politics)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
"A Venezia si delibera et in Levante bisogna essequire" (In Venice they decide, and in Levante we have to implement): These are the words of Anzolo Basadonna, Venetian governor in Cefalonia in 1603, who thus expressed his doubts regarding the success of fiscal measures approved by the Venetian Senate in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The factors causing Basadonna’s pessimism were the widespread practice of contraband, the emergence of the group of the tax-farmers, who used state revenues for personal profit, and the conditions related to the control of arable land. Despite the efforts of Venetian local authorities, the upgrading of tax-levy mechanisms was underscored by tax evasion and tax frauds, which came as a result of kinship, social interaction, and corrupt officials.
Fotios Baroutsos (fbarouts@princeton.edu) holds a position of researcher in the Department of History at the Ionian University, Corfu, Greece, where he received his Ph.D. (2002) in history, after having earned a degree in political science (1995) from the Law School, University of Athens. His scholarly work focuses on the evolution of fiscal institutions and economic thinking in early modern Western Europe, fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. He has also participated in research projects on nineteenth century Corfu and the formation of the first Greek state (Eptanisos Politeia). He is currently working on a book on the galley-slave penalty in sixteenth century Venice, based on the diary of a convict.
Andrea Nanetti (University of Bologna; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Alan Stahl, Curator of Numismatics
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
Historiography on the Fourth Crusade (1198-1204) and on the role that it had in the determination of Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics during the following centuries reveals a remarkable degree of continuity from 1204 to the present. In spite of the always new and different historical courses of reappropriation of the past by historians of various times and disparate schools, it seems that, although well known, the social realities of Greek-Latin-Ottoman government institutions that developed in already Byzantine territories since the thirteenth century have never become part of medieval and modern European cultural awareness. This talk presents an historical investigation of this cultural choice. The method will be the analysis of the sources, the evidence of geography as illustrated by maps, with a glance at the European imaginary about the duchy of Athens.
Andrea Nanetti (ananetti@princeton.edu) received his Laurea and Ph.D. from the University of Bologna. Since 2004 he is Lecturer in "History of Byzantine Maritime Traditions" and since 2006 in "History of Medieval Venice" at the School of Cultural Heritage Preservation of the University of Bologna. His main research field is the history of Latin-Greek-Ottoman Mediterranean after the Fourth Crusade, with a focus on the study of Venetian documents and chronicles. Between 1996 and 2007 part of the research results has been presented in more than fifty papers in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Hungary. He is the editor of the "Morosini Chronicle (1094-1433)," of the Documenta Veneta Coroni et Methoni rogata (s. XIII-XV), and of the original Papal bull "Religiosam vitam" by Gregory X for Mount Sinai (1274). Recent and forthcoming publications include articles and monographs on the Peloponnese and on the European imaginary about Medieval Greece. He is the leader of "Meduproject," a University summer program of Modern Greek language and of professional photography for cultural heritage purposes held in Methoni (since 2002) and in Mykonos (since 2007), in collaboration with the University of Bologna and with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
Thomas Mathews (New York University - Institute of Fine Arts)
211 Dickinson Hall
Reading packets are available in the Departments of History, Classics and Art and Archeology, or online (with color pictures!) at: http://www.princeton.edu/~lasg.
Panayotis Pappas (University of Macedonia, Greece;Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Ignacio Walker (Woodrow Wilson School)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
How does political charisma emerge in democracy? The talk proposes two distinct models of charismatic emergence. The first model requires a prior major crisis and involves the formal invitation by the population-in-crisis to some leader for assuming power and providing salvation. The second model presupposes no crisis; here, charisma emerges in conditions of solid democratic institutions and relative political normalcy, and involves a symbolic struggle for the radical re-institution of politics. These two models are adequately exemplified by the cases of former Greek party leaders and prime ministers Constantine Karamanlis and Andreas Papandreou, respectively.
Takis Pappas (Ph.D., Yale University) (ppappas@princeton.EDU) is Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies of the University of Macedonia, Greece. He has taught at the Universities of Athens and Thessaloniki, as well as the Greek Open University. He has been a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University. He is the author of Making Party Democracy in Greece (Palgrave/Macmillan, 1999) and various articles that have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, West European Politics, South European Society and Politics, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and elsewhere. His current academic and research interests include the comparative study of charismatic leadership, the rise of mass radicalism in democracy, and patronage politics.
Iosif Vivilakis (University of Athens; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103
In Classical times stage terminology defined drama as a unique genre of literature, an art form that was realized within the frame of the performance. Through the early Christian period and until the era of Justinian in the sixth century, available information for performances of ancient drama is scarce, but theatre terms, such as tragedy, comedy, and drama remain in use long after the publication of the canons of the Ecumenical Councils on mimes and theatre. Stage terms survive for over 2,000 years, even when there was little evidence for theatrical practice. The questions addressed in this presentation are: What happened to the original meanings of stage terms in Byzantium? Do they refer to a living theatre, or are they just fossils from the past? Who used these terms and in what context? This presentation is a brief survey of the use and semantics of Greek stage terms. Focusing on Byzantine literary texts, with frequent reference to their use in theology and history, the talk will explore links between Byzantine culture and early Modern Greek theatre before the nineteenth century.
Iosif Vivilakis (ivivilak@princeton.edu) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Athens. Following his first degree in Theology (1984), he earned a second degree in Theatre Studies (1994) and his Ph.D. in Theatre Studies (1996), all from the University of Athens. His book Theatrical Representation in Byzantium and the West (Athens, 2003) focuses on theatre during the late Byzantine era. He has served on the academic cultural committee of the Rector of the University of Athens and organized “A Visit with the Arts,” a festival at the Old University of Athens, which brought together academics, artists, and the community. He has taught courses on the history of the European Medieval theatre, Byzantine theatre, theatre education, and historical and literary approaches to theatrical sources. He is a regular contributor of reviews for the daily newspaper Kathimerini.