Poststructuralism, Comparativism and Modern Greek Studies

In March 1996, the Modern Greek Studies Program at Ohio State University organized a workshop entitled "Whither the Neohellenic?" As Gregory Jusdanis writes in the conference proceedings published in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies, the workshop participants (most of them affiliated with universities in Canada and the United States) were asked to consider the following questions:

Has modern Greek culture been superseded by other cultures as an object of critical interest? Are the images of Greece that were conceived first in the nineteenth century, and then in the twentieth by the Generation of the '30s, no longer valid? Is there a similar project being undertaken today that is as comprehensive and persuasive? Are alternative interpretations of the Neohellenic being attempted, ones more in tune with current philosophical and cultural fashions?

(1997:172)

Fourteen years later (May 2010), yet another workshop organized at Ohio State University asked its participants to focus on the question of "Teaching Modern Greek Literature: What Are the Texts in the Class?" Both topics echo, in a sense, our anxiety of being minor: of keeping up with current theoretical developments; of being able to teach Greek texts in academic settings where Greek Studies are increasingly at a disadvantage; of attracting students to Greek Studies at a time when interest in the humanities is decreasing. The two workshops also point to a certain trajectory: the movement from how we teach (our theoretical models) to what we teach. The following brief discussion approaches these two questions (of what and how we teach) as interrelated. Fourteen years after that noteworthy attempt to delineate the position and the future direction of the field, I am returning to the question of theory and to some of the conclusions of that workshop, in an attempt to outline the practical consequences of our interaction with other fields, as well as the ways in which we incorporate contemporary theoretical models. These are choices that define, to a large extent, the kinds of texts we expose our students to, but, most importantly, the way in which we define Modern Greek Studies as an area that can participate in current theoretical discussions, be it in the context of cultural studies, ethnicity and ethnic literature, globalization, and even postcolonial studies and cosmopolitanism.

In his article "World Literature: The Unbearable Lightness of Thinking Globally," Gregory Jusdanis discusses the position of modern Greek literature in the current theoretical environment and particularly in the context of the "World Literature" category. The criteria, he writes, "for determining whether or not a text is world literature have to do with its place of origins, which increasingly is located in Europe's former colonies" (2003:123). He further warns of the dangers intrinsic in such binary conceptualization (i.e. Europe and its former colonies), suggesting that "traditions—say, Armenian, Bulgarian, modern Greek, Hebrew, and Icelandic—that do not fit into either the cosmopolitan or the postcolonial template will not be part of the draft" (2003:123).

Postcolonialism and cosmopolitanism are indeed general categories that have defined much of the current theoretical climate in cultural and literary studies. A third related category, that of poststructuralism, has been dominating theoretical discussions in cultural and literary studies for the past three decades, further challenging the validity of ethnic studies (in ways that will be discussed later on). The response of many scholars of Modern Greek Studies to the challenges posed by the emergence of these theoretical categories as the dominant discursive tropes has been the attempt, at least in the past couple of decades, to read modern Greek literature in ways that interact or draw from already established theoretical models. The best example of this theoretical shift is undoubtedly the field's participation in postcolonial discourse. Some of the most notable studies that have emerged in Modern Greek Studies have indeed attempted to apply postcolonial theory to the case of modern Greece.

In Dream Nation, Stathis Gourgouris attempted such a postcolonial reading of Greek history and literature, arguing that "if the story of India is the paradigmatic condition of the colonialist imaginary, then the story of Greece is the paradigmatic colonialist condition in the...