The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories

by K. S. Brown (Editor), Yannis Hamilakis University of Southampton (Editor)

Overview

In this volume, K.S. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis bring together scholars of history, archaeology, and anthropology to explore the located and contextual nature of historical narratives. The contributors analyze contested historic rituals, building styles, and traditions-looking through the unique lens of twentieth-century Greek identity-paying particular attention to the ways these social phenomena and cultural artifacts manifest tension between 'official' and 'unofficial' narratives of the past. Though focused on the changing historical basis of Greek culture and identity, this work further serves as an important theoretical contemplation of how our view of the past is shaped by our relationship with the present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461718024
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	11/27/2002
Series:	Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

K.S. Brown is Assistant Professor at the Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University and lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Wales, Lampeter. Yannis Hamilakis is lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Southampton.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Cupboard of Yesterdays? Critical Perspectives on the Usable Past
Part 2 Projects: The State in Action
Chapter 3 Monumental Visions: the Past in Metaxas' weltanschauung
Chapter 4 "Learn History!" Antiquity, National Narrative, and History in Greek Educational Textbooks
Chapter 5 The Politics of Currency: Stamps, Coins, Banknotes, and the Circulation of Modern Greek Tradition
Part 6 Fractures: Resisting the National Narrative
Chapter 7 The Macedonian Question in the 1920s and the Politics of History
Chapter 8 Recollecting Difference: Archive-Marxists and Old Calendarists in an Exile Community
Chapter 9 The Ethnoarchaeology of a "Passive" Ethnicity. The Arvanites of Central Greece
Part 10 Conversations: From Past to Present
Chapter 11 Dimitris Pikionis and Sedad Eldem: Parallel Reflections of Vernacular and National Architecture
Chapter 12 Spaces in Tense: History, Contingency, and Place in a Cretan City
Chapter 13 Poked by the 'Foreign Finger' in Greece: Conspiracy Theory or the Hermeneutics of Suspicion?
Chapter 14 Afterword

Editorial Reviews

.. . intellectually stimulating, a delight to read and one that will appeal to many humanists and social scientists...

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

A stellar collection... Highly recommended.

Choice Reviews

Examining closely the conflicts between 'official' and 'unofficial' narratives of the past, as well as diverse interpretations of history directly influence by the modern day, The Useable Past is an insightful and scholarly work revealing not only document aspects of Hellenic history, but the flexibility of the human psyche as characteristics of the human condition today as it was in the days of Greek antiquity.

Midwest Book Review

A stellar collection... Highly recommended.

Choice

. . . intellectually stimulating, a delight to read and one that will appeal to many humanists and social scientists...--Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Examining closely the conflicts between 'official' and 'unofficial' narratives of the past, as well as diverse interpretations of history directly influence by the modern day, The Useable Past is an insightful and scholarly work revealing not only document aspects of Hellenic history, but the flexibility of the human psyche as characteristics of the human condition today as it was in the days of Greek antiquity.--Midwest Book Review

A stellar collection... Highly recommended.--CHOICE

From the Publisher

A stellar collection... Highly recommended.

CHOICE