The history of feminism in Greece begins at the end of the 19th century when some educated women of the Greek bourgeoisie decided to take action and help women become visible in public life through their discourse, their ideas, their demand for equality and their practical solidarity with working class women.

The start of the feminist movement in Greece was marked by the founding of the newspaper Ladies' Journal (Greek: Ephemeris ton kyrion) in 1887, published by women and addressed to the middle-class women of the new Greek state and the Greek diaspora. The newspaper’s publisher and editor-in-chief was journalist and writer Kalliroi Parren, while the editorial team included Agathoniki Antoniadou, Sappho Leontias, Dr. Anthi Vassiliadou, Florentia Fountoukli and Krystallia Chrysovergi, all of who had knowledge of the struggles for the women’s cause in Europe and overseas.

The early demands of the feminist movement

The first demands of Greek feminists were related to women’s right to education and professional training, especially for working-class women. At the initiative of the movement, and Kalliroi Parren in particular, "Sunday schools" were founded from 1890 in most Greek cities, in order to provide an education for the girls who worked and could not go to school. From 1896 onwards, "professional and housekeeping schools" were founded, with the aim of linking education with employment.

Indeed, during the interwar period women entered the labor market en masse, both as factory and freelance workers, and also in public services; this allowed them to stop depending exclusively on the income of male family members as well as to become more aware of the social restrictions and inequitable conditions they faced in these new fields.

The first feminists also demanded some civil rights so that women could manage their own property, participate in family councils and assume custody of their children.

The first legal reforms regarding women in the workforce and the educational system were introduced in 1910 by Eleftherios Venizelos' Liberal Party government. From 1912, women were prohibited by law from working night shifts and from participating in heavy and unhealthy occupations. The first maternity protection measures were also introduced, providing for a maternity leave of a few weeks. At the same time, schools, educational institutes and high schools for girls were established and the number of female students increased. The presence of women was especially felt in certain professions: teachers, switchboard operators, typists, cashiers, nurses, midwives, doctors, pediatricians and journalists.

The right to vote in the 1930s and 1950s

It wasn’t until 1920 that the feminist movement in Greece began to claim civil rights for women, with the founding of the League for Women's Rights by Avra Theodoropoulou, wife of Spyros Theodoropoulos, lawyer and adviser of Eleftherios Venizelos. The League, affiliated to the International Alliance of Women, was the first exclusively feminist organization in Greece, uniting all feminists in the common fight for women's suffrage. The brochure "The Women's Struggle", written in the "demotic" (vernacular) language, reflected the positions of the League for Women's Rights and its demands.

In February 1930, under pressure from the women's movement, political authorities granted women the right to vote in municipal elections under the following conditions: they to be literate and over the age of 30. The municipal elections in 1932 marked the first time Greek women participated in elections, although only a few thousands would actually make use of their right at the time.

During the country’s occupation by the Axis powers, women actively participated in resistance groups, especially within the National Liberation Front (EAM). In April 1944, at the elections for the National Council, a legislative body set up by the National Liberation Front resistance movement, women over 18 voted for the first time, on a national level.

After Greece’s liberation, women's associations resumed their activities and new associations were created in the tradition of the EAM, such as the Panhellenic Democratic Union of Women. Peace and the protection of mothers and children became the main demands of the women's movement.

On the eve of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), all left-wing women's groups were declared illegal. During the civil war, women were present on both sides, although in different circumstances. The participation of women in the Democratic Army allowed, among other things, to test societal norms and stereotypes, as well as to demonstrate their persistence.

Greek women gained full electoral rights on June 7, 1952 under Law 2151, passed by the centrist alliance government of Nikolaos Plastiras. Although later that year national elections took place in Greece, women’s right to vote was not yet exercised given that electoral rolls had not been updated. However, many did vote at local by-elections that took place in 1953. It was at these by-elections that the first Greek woman member of parliament was elected: it was Eleni Skoura, member of the conservative “Greek Rally” party. At the 1956 general elections all adult Greek women could at last participate in elections on a national level.

The fall of the military dictatorship and "neo-feminism"

During the seven-years military dictatorship in Greece (1967-1974), the functioning of women's organizations was prohibited and many of their archives were destroyed. Women played an important role in resistance organizations in Greece and abroad, while many were imprisoned and exiled.

After the fall of the military junta and during the period of transition to democracy (Metapolitefsi), new collective subjects emerge in the public sphere with a strong claim to political visibility. Feminists of the time attempted to highlight the political character of gender hierarchy, both in the private and public spheres, denouncing male domination as the underlying condition of all social phenomena. The slogan "The personal is political" best sums up the importance given to highlighting the social and political aspect of relations between men and women. Many women were involved in movements that denounced gender-based discriminations, demanded gender equality and sought to ensure women's presence in politics.

The 1975 Constitution lays the foundation for gender equality. In article 4, par. 1 and 2, it is stated that: "All Greeks are equal before the law. Greek men and women have the same rights and obligations". The state begins to recognize feminist issues by creating institutions responsible for gender equality and attempts to reduce institutional discrimination against women. The constitutional recognition of equality led to subsequent changes in family law, labor law, and laws on education, social security, maternity, health, and crime.

After the restoration of democracy, the structure of the women's movement diversified. The movement of "neo-feminism" focused its efforts on issues including domestic violence, legalization of abortion, sexuality, family and work.

Women's organizations, whose functioning had been interrupted by the military junta, were re-established. The "Greek League for Women's Rights" is an example: it was re-founded in 1974 and was strongly involved in women's activism during the period of 1974-1990. It also played a crucial role in the establishment of the new institutional framework on gender equality.

At the same time, national women's organizations were created in relation to or within political parties. This category includes three major national women's organizations: the Union of Greek Women (EGE) politically linked to PASOK, the Democratic Women’s Movement (KDG) politically linked to the Eurocommunist party of Greece and the Federation of Greek Women (OGE) linked to the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During that same period youth movements and trade unions gradually established women's sections or committees focusing on issues related to working women.

Family law was radically reformed in 1982-1983, introducing gender equality, the abolition of dowry and the authority of the father, the decriminalization of adultery and the right to have children outside of marriage. The decriminalization of abortion was also introduced in 1986. In 1984, Greece also enacted Law 1414/1984 against employment discrimination.

Feminism today

The feminist movement in Greece follows the general trends in that immerge in the Western world. Third-wave feminism (beginning in the 1990s) redefined the movement focusing on the aspects of diversity and inclusivity, and addressing issues such as intersectionality, sex positivity and the LGBTQ+ agenda.

Fourth-wave feminism, believed to have emerged around 2012, has further sought to raise awareness on gendered norms and systemic discrimination, placing emphasis on the empowerment of women and giving voice to survivors of trafficking and of domestic, gender-based and sexual violence. Feminism today is concerned with issues that range from the needs of women affected by armed conflict to the gender pay gap, gender stereotypes, unrealistic beauty standards and casual sexism.

N.M. (Based on the original article which appeared on GrèceHebdo; Intro photo: Kalliroi Parren (1859-1940), from the Archives of "Lyceum Club of Greek Women")

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Varvara Athanasiou-Ioannou AM, a dedicated educator, human resources professional, and founder of the NGO Food for Thought Network, was born in Epirus, Greece, and moved to Australia in 1972. She began her career in Victoria’s Department of Education, initially as a teacher and author of textbooks for Greek language education. Later, she became a school counselor before moving into private-sector leadership roles in human resources. She has alse served as a sessional lecturer at Swinburne University, focusing on diversity in the workplace.

In 2001, Athanasiou-Ioannou founded the Food for Thought Network with a mission to empower and connect Greek women, a commitment for which she was recognized with awards from the Victorian Honour Roll for Women and the Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2004.

This September, Athanasiou-Ioannou and the Food for Thought Network organized the inaugural "Women and Hellenism" conference in Ioannina, Greece. Held during September 2-6, 2024, the event brought together 50 speakers, distinguished women from around the world—business leaders, scientists, authors, academics, and politicians—to discuss themes such as omen’s multifaceted identities and roles, Greek identity and heritage across generations and the sustainability of Hellenism in a global context.

The conference marked a landmark occasion in celebrating Hellenism and the role of Greek women in shaping a more inclusive and vibrant future for Hellenic culture globally.

Athanasiou-Ioannou discussed with Greek News Agenda* the impact of the Food for Thought Network in empowering Greek Australian women through community and cultural preservation. She reflects on the challenges facing the Greek Diaspora in Australia, the evolving role of women as community leaders, and her vision for an ongoing global dialogue through the Women and Hellenism Conference that can strengthen intergenerational Greek identity and foster global partnerships.

As the founder of the “Food for Thought Network,” how have you seen the organization influence the lives of Greek Australian women?

The Food for Thought Network has been a powerful catalyst for change in the lives of Greek Australian women by providing a platform for them to connect, share their stories, and offer mutual support, both personally and professionally. Through over 150 events, a Philosophy Café, an online interactive platform, and a self-published book, HER VOICE: Greek Women and Their Friends, which profiles the voices of 42 women, the network has fostered a vibrant community. Additionally, the Inaugural Global Conference has been a significant milestone in the journey.

By focusing on education and raising awareness about the barriers and enablers to women's development, leadership, and cultural heritage, the network has supported many in strengthening sense of identity, building confidence and in pursuing ambitions. Providing mentorship opportunities, referring women to relevant organizations, offering financial support to young women seeking to improve their lives. Like Soprano Christiana Aloneftis, sharing the role of Maria Callas with Angelina Jolie in the film MARIA.

Beyond its immediate activities, the network has helped reconnect women with their cultural roots, especially those who had previously “distanced” themselves from their heritage or let go. Many now attend events related to Greek culture, seeking opportunities for involvement and connection they once avoided.

What inspired you to organize the Women and Hellenism Conference ? How does it align with the mission of the Food for Thought Network?

The Global Women and Hellenism Conference was inspired by a long-held dream of mine to unite women from Greece and the diaspora to foster stronger connections and collaboration; fueled by the success and positive reception of my book, HER VOICE: Greek Women and Their Friends Global Forum and the thriving closed Facebook group, "Greek Women and Friends Global Forum." Both platforms highlighted the need for a global space where women of Greek heritage could come together to share stories, experiences and aspirations.

Aligned to the network’s mission, the conference was born out of a desire to celebrate and amplify the contributions of Greek women worldwide while reinforcing the cultural ties. With the aim to provide a unique opportunity for women to come together – to exchange ideas, explore their roles as leaders, cultural custodians, community change-makers, and advance women empowerment and leadership.

The Greek diaspora in Australia has a rich history spanning over a century. What are the biggest challenges currently facing the Greek diaspora in Australia, especially in terms of cultural preservation, integration, and identity?

The Greek diaspora in Australia, spanning over a century, faces several nuanced challenges such as cultural preservation, integration, and identity which vary significantly across generations.

For the first generation migrating in the mid-20th century, a deep anxiety exists about maintaining the Greek language and traditions. With over 400 thousand Australians of Greek descent today, (some claim 700 thousand) this generation is aging accentuated by a growing urgency to pass on their stories, customs, and values to ensure Hellenic “continuity”. There is a pressing need for community-based programs that preserve their language and culture while fostering new generational engagement.

The second generation, born and raised in Australia, faces different challenges around balancing co-existence (Australian society vs Greek cultural heritage). Many grew up speaking Greek at home while navigating a multicultural environment outside. In Victoria, Greek is still ranked higher when it comes to the language spoken at home, other than English. After Mandarin (221,798) and Vietnamese (118,801), Greek is in third place with 107,158 with a gradual erosion of the language among younger generations. This generation wrestles with maintaining identity amidst increasing cultural integration, especially as mixed marriages and diverse family structures—such as high divorce rates and single-parent households—become more common.

For the younger, third and fourth generations, growing up in an even more multicultural Australia, the connection to their Greek roots sometimes feels more distant. In a world shaped by modern global challenges, such as economic inequality and social change, cultural preservation often takes a back seat.

Ensuring younger generations stay connected to their Greek heritage, language, and traditions is a major community concern. Programs like Greek language schools, cultural/religious festivals, youth exchange programs, scholarships and community events are vital, however their reach is sometimes limited.

Without active and innovative efforts to engage youth, Hellenism sustainability is at risk. New ways of being connected to the heritage such as travel opportunities, technology, theatre, music and gastronomy were discussed at the Conference.

Women have always played a crucial role in maintaining cultural heritage within the diaspora. How do you see the role of women in the Greek Australian community evolving today?

Greek Australian women play a pivotal role in preserving cultural heritage within their community, often juggling careers, young children, and elderly parents, creating an exhausted "sandwich generation." Today’s women are well-educated, independent, and highly skilled at navigating the multiple challenges they face in both their personal and professional lives.

The economic crisis in Greece led to a "brain drain," but for Australia, it resulted in a "brain gain," with many educated, bilingual, and well-travelled women migrating to the country. Injecting fresh energy into the community, creating new organizations and enriching the cultural and social fabric.

Currently Greek Australian women remain underrepresented in leadership roles within both mainstream and community organizations, many of which remain patriarchal. Research shows that diversity in leadership, particularly gender diversity, directly correlates with more productive, innovative, and financially successful organizations. Studies by McKinsey and Catalyst have found that companies with higher levels of gender diversity on their boards outperform those with lower diversity by as much as 15-25% in financial returns.

Women-led not-for-profit service provider organizations, such as Pronia, Frondidha Care, and AGAPI Care in Melbourne, helmed by Greek Australian women, are thriving because they benefit from the leadership and decision-making approaches women bring; emphasising collaboration, inclusivity, and long-term strategic vision.

As Greek Australian women increasingly step into leadership roles across various sectors, as culture carriers they juggle the preservation of Greek traditions while advocating for gender equality and empowerment. Shaping the narrative of what it means to be both Greek and Australian and vice versa: blending tradition with modernity and driving positive change and impact within their communities and beyond.

In your experience, how have Greek Australian women acted as cultural ambassadors both in Australia and Greece? Are there any stories or individuals that stand out to you?

Greek Australian women, as culture carriers, are actively engaged in professional spheres and play a vital role in preserving Greek traditions through community events, educational initiatives, and cultural festivals. Notably, many have championed causes like bilingual education, ensuring that younger generations not only learn Greek but also embrace the richness of their heritage.

There are numerous examples of women who have excelled in leadership across various fields. Professor Vasso Apostolopoulos, a globally recognized immunologist, Associate Professor Magdalena Simonis AM, a national advocate for women's health, Professor Catherine Itsiopoulos an advocate on the mediterranean “diaita”, prominent journalists Helen Kapalos and Patricia Karvelas, are just a few. Others, such as festival director Nia Karteris, Violet Roumeliotis AM have influenced government policies related to refugees and asylum seekers, and Chanel Contos who successfully advocated for consent to be included in sex education, stand out.

Politicians like Maria Vamvakinou, Jenny Mikakos and accomplished academics such as Professor Joy Damousi, Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis along with numerous businesswomen. Like Global diversity consultant Maria Dimopoulos AM, Penny Sahinis who mentors top female leaders who take a seat at the IMF and G20 table. Leading researchers and academics recognised for their significant contributions both in Australia and internationally.

Their efforts as leaders and advocates exemplify the essential role they play in connecting and enriching both cultures whilst advancing reforms in their field of work and creating noteworthy impact.

Looking forward, what is your vision for the Women and Hellenism Conference? How do you believe we can foster a deeper intercultural exchange and understanding of Hellenism, both within Greece and in the diaspora communities abroad?

The future of the Women and Hellenism Conference lies in expanding its reach and depth through ongoing dialogue between women in Greece and diaspora and reporting on tangible outcomes and impact.

A permanent global network of women who can collaborate across countries, sectors, and cultures to promote Hellenism and the role of women in leadership is nested with the vision.

Requiring financial support of the Greek Government to continue with regular global conferences in Greece (with economic benefit) and fostering intercultural exchange through mentorship programs, scholarships, cultural/business exchanges via collaborative projects to sustain Hellenism. As an aside, we can also play a role in facilitating strategic partnerships across academia, business and NGO level.

As I look back to on the conference, the women of the Greek diaspora arrived and were visible to their compatriots who were surprisingly taken aback and, equally, enveloped in our multifaceted identities.

So much to do we’ve just only started.

* Interview to Ioulia Livaditi

Read also from Greek News Agenda

• Rethinking Greece | Nicholas Doumanis on the last century of Greek history: Greeks are resilient and resourceful
• Book of the Month: ‘Forty Photographs: A Year at a Time’ by Effy Alexakis
• Migration Routes: First Greek Australian Archive Underway

The post Empowering Greek Australian Women: Varvara Athanasiou-Ioannou on Diaspora, Female Leadership and Hellenism appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

"Women, Peace and Security" was the theme of the event organized by the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 8, 2024. The event was held on the occasion of the adoption of the first National Action Plan for Women, Peace and Security (2023-2028), a key pillar of Greece's bid to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the period 2025-2026.

In the words of Minister of Foreign Affairs George Gerapetritis, who introduced the event, "the need for a meaningful presence of women is becoming and will become even more important in the future. In a world that for centuries has been built on the logic of male dominance, what is necessary, in my opinion, to consolidate social peace, is a more substantial balance in the participation of both sexes in decision-making processes, especially in those decisions that are related to world peace and prosperity". The minister added that an Office for Equality has been established at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which aims, inter alia, to monitor the implementation of the National Action Plan for Women, Peace and Security.

Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the UN

Women, Peace and Security (WPS) is a policy framework that recognizes that women must be critical actors in all efforts to achieve sustainable international peace and security. It is based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution on Women Peace and Security (WPS), SCR 1325, adopted in October 2000.

It is the first resolution to link women to the peace and security agenda and acknowledge that armed conflicts impact women and girls differently from men and boys, as well as the need for women’s active and effective participation in peacemaking, including peace processes and peacebuilding. SCR 1325 consists of four pillars

• The role of women in conflict prevention;
• Women’s participation in peacemaking and peacebuilding;
• The protection of women’s rights during and after conflict; and
• Women’s specific needs during repatriation, resettlement, rehabilitation, reintegration and post-conflict reconstruction.

Following SCR 1325, the Security Council has adopted nine additional resolutions on WPS, the most recent in October 2019. These resolutions are often referred to as belonging to two sets of categories.

National Action Plan for Women, Peace and Security

This is the first national plan for the implementation of WPS policy framework, and it aims to enhance the role of women and girls as agents of change in maintaining peace and security, promoting and protecting human rights and the rule of law, as well as achieving sustainable development at a national, regional and global level.  Equally important is the inclusion of gender in the way public administration operates, through its systematic mainstreaming in public policies (Articles 10-20 of Law 4604/2019 A' 50).

The agenda also addresses a series of UN Security Council resolutions focusing on the following issues:

• Conflict-related sexual violence and peace negotiations (S/RES/1820/2008), strengthening actions to repress it (S/RES/1888/2009) and implementing relevant procedures for recording, analyzing and reporting incidents (S/RES/1960/2010),
• criminal responsibility and accountability of perpetrators (S/RES/2106/2013),
• sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping missions (S/RES/2272/2016),
• survivors of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (S/RES/2467/2019),
• protection and empowerment of women after the end of armed conflicts (S/RES/1889/2009),
• persistent failures in the implementation of the Agenda (S/RES/2122/2013),
• the role of women in combating violent extremism and terrorism (S/RES/2242/2015),
• the interconnection between human trafficking, armed conflict, and insecurity (S/RES/2331/2016),
• the need for states to implement their national commitments to fulfill the Agenda (S/RES/2493/2019).

The all-female panel of distinguished speakers included:

• Dr. Zefi Dimadama, Secretary General for Equality & Human Rights, Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family
• Ms Maria Gavouneli, Professor at Athens Law School, President of the National Commission for Human Rights, Director General of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
• H.E. Ms Anna - Karine Asselin, Ambassador of Canada
• H.E. Ms Lindiwe Gail Msengana - Ndlela, Ambassador of South Africa
• H.E. Ms Maria Theofili, Ambassador, Director General for International Organizations and International Security and Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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From December 2023 until the end of October 2024, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (EMST-ΕΜΣΤ) will showcase "What if Women Ruled the World? ," a three-part exhibition series exclusively dedicated to the works of women artists or artists who identify as female.

With the re-hang of one entire floor of the museum’s permanent collection and a series of twelve solo exhibitions of Greek and international artists of different generations, over the course of the next months, the entire museum will gradually be taken over by women artists. "It is the first time," emphasizes τhe museum’s artistic director, Katerina Gregos, "that a public museum exclusively exhibits works by women creators, not only in the exhibition of its permanent collection but also in all the spaces of its periodical exhibitions." Despite recent advances, as women artists and cultural practitioners are still underrepresented in most aspects of the art world, this project, initiated by the museum’s artistic director, aims to radically reimagine what a museum would look like if, instead of a few token pieces, works by women artists were the majority.

Katerina Gregos continues: "Our intention and goal is to go beyond the dominant narrative and symbolically -and not only symbolically - overturn the reality of the chronic underrepresentation of female creators in all fields of art." The exhibitions provide an opportunity for women to reflect on their positions, rights, achievements, and demands. What would happen, really, if women ruled the world? And what form would museums have if women had understood their rightful place in the history of modern art?

In an even broader context, the exhibition cycle posits an oft-repeated hypothetical question: Would the world be a better place if women led governance and were key decision makers? Would it mean the end of political and armed conflict and deadlock? And, ultimately, would the world be a more caring and compassionate place? Or would we bear witness to the same human flaws, corruption and abuses of power engaged in by those in critical decision- making positions?

At a time when we are seeing the rise of male-driven authoritarian rule in Europe and beyond, leading to social and political polarization and heightened geopolitical tensions, it seems a timely moment for reflection.

Parts I, II and III of "What If Women Ruled the World?"

Part I of "What If Women Ruled the World?" opened December 2023 with the re-hang of the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition, entitled WOMEN, together, includes the first comprehensive presentation of a number of works from the D. Daskalopoulos Collection Gift to ΕΜΣΤ and showcases a  total of 49 works by 25 artists of different generations; the solo exhibitions Chryssa Romanos: The Search for Happiness for as Many as Possible; DANAI ANESIADOU: D POSSESSIONS; and Time in my hands. Leda Papaconstantinou. A Retrospective.

From 20 January 2024, visitors to the museum were confronted by the question, What if Women Ruled the World? by way of Yael Bartana's iconic neon work of the same title, which also served as the inspiration behind the title of ΕΜΣΤ's exhibition. The two installations, one in Greek and the other in English, each 10 meters in height, are presented on the north and south exterior façades of the museum, interrogating passers-by along one of Athens' main thoroughfares, Syngrou Avenue.

Openings on International Women's Day

Part II of What If Women Ruled the World? opens on 8 March 2024 on the occasion of International Women's Day, with six solo exhibitions of works by Lola Flash, Bouchra Khalili, Tala Madani, and Malvina Panagiotidi, as well as special projects by Yael Bartana, Claudia Comte, and Hadassah Emmeric.

On International Women's Day, the exhibitions will kick off with a performance by Claudia Comte and performer Andrea Tortosa Vidal at 7:30 PM and 8:30 PM in the museum foyer, as part of Comte's installation. Following that, at 9:30 PM, there will be a musical performance by Jeanna Criscitiello at the ground floor exhibition space

Part III will inaugurate three further solo exhibitions of work by Bertille Bak, Penny Siopis, and Eva Stefani on 11 May 2024.

Current exhibitions

Chrysa Romanou - The pursuit of happiness for as many as possible

Chrysa Romanou (1931-2006) is one of the most important Greek artists who emerged in the 1960s. She belongs to the group of Greek intellectuals of the diaspora who lived and worked in artistic centers of the West and for the first time in the history of Greek art actively participated in shaping international currents of their time.

The twenty years that Romanou lived in Paris (1961-1981) were decisive for the development of her artistic identity. From her first steps, the motif of the labyrinth, travel, criticism of consumer society, political interest in social inequalities and injustice, the democratization of art, the osmosis of art and everyday life return as central thematic axes and evolve as the artist matures and the social and political environment changes.

Danae Anesiadou - D POSSESSIONS

This is the first solo exhibition in Greece of the artist Danae Anesiadou, who for the last fifteen years has instilled a wide range of metaphysical and personal concerns in a captivating and multi-prismatic set of works, with references to cinema, the occult, Greek antiquity, surrealism, as well as current affairs. She has been described as "the most characteristic European voice of the crisis of the 21st century".

Anesiadou, seeking to understand and think critically about the present, finds connections between things that on the surface seem completely unrelated to each other: from fake news and conspiracy theories, the entertainment industrial complex of Hollywood and the American Pentagon, reality television and the fashion industry, along with references to ancient Greek sculpture, surrealism and B-movies.

Time in my Hands Leda Papaconstantinou A Retrospective

Time in my hands represents the first ever major retrospective exhibition for Leda Papaconstantinou (b. 1945), one of the most important artists in the history of contemporary art in Greece. For over almost five decades, Papaconstantinou developed a diverse body of work that took on a range of forms – performance, sculpture, video, site-specific installations, painting, etc. – in order to explore issues of gender, sexuality, collective and personal memory, history, politics and ecology, centred always on the body. As a trailblazing feminist artist and one of the most important artists of her generation, Papaconstantinou’s work is a seminal reference point for the Greek art scene and serves as an inspiration for subsequent generations of artists.

From the 1960s onwards, at a time of social and cultural radicalism, Papaconstantinou was one of the first artists to experiment with the then-emerging medium of performance art. Her first iconoclastic performances, carried out during her studies in England, investigate the construction of gender, identity and the female subject, through a feminist perspective that challenges patriarchal structures and other hierarchical relationships of power. The exhibition includes her films and performances from the 1968–1971 period, her first installations in Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, the 1975–1979 community theatre group “Spetses Players”, and her large-scale video installations of recent years. It aims to showcase and reframe pertinent issues within her art practice concerning gender, identity, the social dimension of the artwork, memory, and the relationship between discourse and corporality.

WOMEN, together

This collective exhibition WOMEN, together represents the first re-hang of the museum’s collection since 2019 and makes a bold statement by showcasing only work by women artists. There are a total of 49 works by 25 artists of different generations, ten of which are Greek. Twelve artists and 24 works are from the D. Daskalopoulos Collection Gift, while thirteen artists and 25 works are from the existing collection of ΕΜΣΤ. The exhibition also includes seven new acquisitions, as well as a new long-term loan of a major work by Etel Adnan, courtesy of the Saradar Collection.

While there is no single thematic narrative, rather several intertwining threads, there are many common points of reference and dialogue as well as conceptual and aesthetic affinities between works. The artists are preoccupied with a variety of issues, both related to gender and identity, as well as to social and political issues, and the entanglements between them, although what they mostly share is an interest in materiality and the handcrafted, existential or humanistic issues, and the ephemeral nature of all things.

Finally, there are artists who probe issues regarding history, memory and collective/cultural identities centering around the critical geopolitical position of Greece and its immediate geographic surrounds in South East Europe, the Mediterranean, and the former Levant. These are the territories of the former Ottoman Empire, and with them come a multitude of suppressed or marginalized histories that lay dormant in the wake of new nation building in the twentieth century. The legacy of this history and the current history of the wider region with its rich historical, cultural, and socio-political narratives lie at the heart of EMSΤ’s renewed collection policy.

I.L.

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The emergence of historical research on gender in modern Greek historiography is linked to the feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s, during which time, several feminist magazines and student groups appeared. This autonomous feminist movement remained active until the mid 1980s, an era that witnessed significant changes in modern Greek historiography, such as the emergence and rise to prominence of the “new history” paradigm. In this new padadigm, gender appeared to be of secondary importance; as a result, the study of gender at Greek universities was marginalized: between 1985 and 1995, only six books on gender history were published by scholarly institutions, which were not formally linked to Greek universities. The 1990s heralded another era of stagnation in the study of gender in modern Greek historiography, linked to the closure of institutions that had supported historical research on gender. Since the end of that decade, however, the situation has improved; gender attracted increasing attention, marked by the significant increase in the number of publications dealing exclusively or to an extent with gender history. [Source: Gender in modern Greek historiography, Nikolaos Papadogiannis, Historein: 2017].

The establishment of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes dealing with gender history in Greek academia has certainly contributed to this diffusion. What is more, the creation in 2007 of Historians for Research in the History of Women and Gender, the Greek Committee of the International Federation for Research in Women's History (IFRWH), further encouraged the study of gender in modern Greek historiography: for instance, they organized the first conference ever held in Greece that was dedicated to gender history. Since then, gender history continues to grow as distinct academic field, incorporating -and contributing to- international developments in gender history and theory, such as queer theory, sexuality and masculinities studies.

Feminist protest in Athens during the 70s

Encounters on the History of Women and Gender

An important initiative of the aforementioned group “Historians for Research in the History of Women and Gender” is the organization of the series of monthly roundtable discussions, titled "Encounters on the History of Women and Gender". These roundtables touch on a wide variety of subjects, such as historical readings of sexual violence in the 20th century, women’s relation to politics in Greece between 1880 and 1920, the role that feminism played in interwar Balkan politics, and more.

As professor Maria Repoussi, one the coordinators of this initiative explains to In.gr, a fundamental aim of “Encounters” was to expand the audience of people who come into contact with the ideas, tools and approaches of gender theory, “with gender as a window through which to view the past”. These online meetings attract not only university professors, but women from all walks of life who are interested in learning about the gender dimension of the historical past. As Repoussi asserts, “real women are absent [from mainstream versions of history], but gender and the gendered meanings through which we ascribed meaning to the past are real. War is gendered; public space is gendered, and so is private space. Women are absent, not recognized as historical subjects, but gender is everywhere".

After the successful organization of the first five encounters (January-May 2022), the second cycle of monthly roundtable discussions titled "Encounters on Women's and Gender History" begun this October. Covering a wide variety of topics, "Encounters" are open to all interested audiences and are broadcasted live via Zoom and the group's Facebook page. All encounters are conducted in Greek and take place on Tuesdays at 19:00 EET (UTC/GMT+2). The program for this cycle (October 2022 – May 2023) is as follows:

The conference “Against their Will: Representations of Sexual Violence in Modern Greece” will take place on the 4th and the 5th of November 2022, at the Geography Building of the University of the Aegean, in Mytilene, Greece. The conference is organized by the Department of Social Anthropology and History and is a part of the Brintima (Brutal Intimacies) research project. Brinitma explores sexual violence in its historical specificity: as criminal act, court case, public scandal, offence against common morals, war crime and individual experience. Willing to integrate the unexplored Greek case into the international history and the historiography of sexual violence, Brintima focuses on rape cases that provoked private and public discourses and statutory regulations, from the beginning of the twentieth century until the late 1960s.

The research team draws from a wide range of diverse and unexplored material (pretrial investigations, trial transcripts, press cuttings, legal manuals and treatises, military official documents, literature and autobiographical accounts). These sources reveal transformations in legal, social and cultural understandings and treatments of rape, as well as in the ways that important power dynamics of difference (gender, age, socioeconomic status, religion and ethnicity), act upon ideologies and practices of sexual violence. They also underline shifts in the cultural meanings assigned to rape over time, privileging the voices of the individuals involved: policemen, jurists, reporters, perpetrators, victims, and witnesses.

The first session of the conference will be on “Judicial and social practices” [Friday, 4/11, 17.00-21.00, https://youtu.be/h7DDJCgZ5bs], the second on “Representations of sexual violence in print media and literature” [Saturday 5/11, 11.00-13.30 https://youtu.be/uFhG--1oj7o], the third on “Sexual violence during wartime” and the fourth on “Transformations of psychiatry, forensic and legal thought” [Saturday, 5/11, 16.30-21.30, https://youtu.be/GfZOIYlRX58]. You can also follow the event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/brintima

The principal investigator of Brintima, Dimitra Vassiliadou, Associate professor at the University of the Aegean, was interviewed by professor of history at Birkbeck University of London Joanna Bourke, as a part of the SHaMe Project, a research project exploring the role of medicine and psychiatry in sexual violence and aiming to move beyond shame to address this global health crisis. Watch their interview here to hear Joanna and Dimitra speak about research on sexual violence in Greece, the value of comparative history, and the importance of creating channels of communication between historians and the public.

 See more on Gender and History via Greek News Agenda:

• Feminism and Transition to Democracy (1974-1990): Ideas, collectives, claims

• Rethinking Greece: Dina Vaiou on Greek feminist movements, austerity, the city of Athens and the 'otherness' of Greece

• Rethinking Greece: Dimitra Vassiliadou on the history of emotions, sexuality and Greek historiography

I.L.

The post Initiatives on Gender History in Greece appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Greek News Agenda pays tribute to landscape sculptor Nella Golanda who will be turning 81 on June 19 2022. A graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts and the first honorary member of the Pan-Hellenic Association of Landscape Architects, Golanda has, since 1970, applied a holistic approach - or else the concept of “Total Art” - in public spaces, re-establishing the relationship between nature and historical landscape on a human scale with the aim of regenerating urban life in contemporary metropolitan cities.

One of Golanda’s artistic goals has always been to make public spaces human-centered again. In fact, Golanda’s sculptures function as interactive experimental landscapes where art comes out of the museums and becomes part of everyday life. Her works are referenced at international universities, congresses, and architectural editions, while the artist has participated in a number of prestigious events, including the Praga Conference “Culture in Towns” (1993), the European Landscape Convention in Andorra “Landscape and Transfrontier Cooperation: Landscape knows no border» (2015), and the Venice Architecture Biennale (2016).

Though she has had the chance to create works of art in other parts of the world, Nella Golanda’s work is “indigenous” to the Greek landscape. With marble, concrete and wood being the main elements of her work, the artist’s expression of materiality has a direct connection with ancient Greek history and a clear reference to contemporary Greek architecture. As she has noted:

“One of the milestones in my life as a child is that I ran, played, and gazed at the sky and the sea, the beauty of the Greek landscape in correlation with the ancient ruins found in it.

The human scale observed in every architectural expression from the temples of classic antiquity to the most humble buildings, brought me close to an actual miracle. I have had the incredible fortune to live in an open-air museum: Greece”

More specifically, the artist envisions Greece as a terrace towards the sea where the horizon and water surface create a sense of infinity, as this is one of the main features that makes Greek landscape so special. The connection and the dialogue with the coastal landscape have been eloquently expressed in the artist’s design of “Flisvos sculpted Quay” in Paleo Faliro. Other remarkable projects of hers are Flisvos Main Square, Aixoni Sculptured Theatre in Glyfada, and the Pedestrian-Bicycle Path connecting Rafina with Marathon. There are also the Historical Center of Larisa and the Pedestrian Connection of the Two Main Squares of Larisa with the City Ancient Theatre, as well as the Sculpted River of Larissa that was Greece’s official entry to the 5th Landscape Award Session of the Council of Europe.

It is worth mentioning that Nella Golanda is one of the Greek women architects to receive the Archisearch Lifetime Achievement Awards at ESO 2022, the one-day conference that has become a leading showcase event for architecture, and interior & graphic design in Greece. Organized by +Design and Archisearch magazines, the event is co-curated by the Mies Van Der Rohe Foundation and will take place on 15 June at the main stage of Onassis Stegi, under the title “Crossing Territories” referring to society’s unprecedented experiences in recent years, which have paved the way towards cultural, political and economic transformations.

More info:

See also on GNA:

E.S.

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Fotini Bellou is Assistant Professor at the Department of International and European Studies of the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki. Her areas of interest include transatlantic relations, european security, conflict resolution, and strategic communication, while a significant part of her research has focused over the last years on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda; she is currently Director of the UNESCO Chair on Women, Peace and Security at the University of Macedonia. Greek News Agenda* had the opportunity to interview Fotini Bellou on the current state of the discipline of International Relations, gender roles in security studies, as well as the new challenges for Greek Public Diplomacy.

Your recent work has been focusing on the complex intertwinement of gender, diplomacy and peace efforts. As UNESCO Chair on Women, Peace and Security, what would you consider to be the most important achievements in this field over the last years?

The policy agenda of Women, Peace and Security (WPS) was initially formed through the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR)1325 approximately twenty years ago. The first decade was not particularly brilliant as regards the degree of public awareness, or the level of institutional adjustment from international organizations and national governments, despite its substantive enhancement at the time with the addition of a number of Security Council Resolutions.

During the second decade, however, the WPS policy agenda became incorporated as a filter in international practice and started focusing on protecting women during conflict, encouraging women’s participation in peacebuilding and conflict prevention but also fostering participatory governance through equal rights for women and men in most international organizations. I would consider two important developments to have taken place in recent years that could be seen as instrumental achievements for the promotion of the WPS policy agenda.

The first regards the institutional Action Plans on WPS or respective strategies that all major international organizations have officially adopted in recent years. These aim at projecting the WPS particular policy framework for action not only towards their internal structures but also towards their multilateral policies that also involve the governmental policies of their member states. This by no means entails an established “doctrine” for all governments and societies to follow. Effective implementation is still pending. However, I consider it entails a strong political weight which governments and political leaders are finding difficult to reject publicly these days. After all we are referring to the promotion of the fundamental human right of equality between women and men. In my opinion, sometimes small concrete institutional steps towards emancipatory democracy can prove to be more sustainable and thus difficult to challenge.

This leads to the second important achievement that has taken place in recent years. It regards the inclusion of the WPS provision in all UNSCRs related to peacekeeping operations. This means that as long as the “WPS perspective” is found at the strategic level of a peacekeeping operation, its provisions are more likely to be monitored and implemented. In other words, nowadays you can hardly find a peacekeeping or peacebuilding multinational operation without a gender advisor. Ten years ago only 2 percent of women served as heads or deputy heads of peacekeeping operations while today this indicator in peacekeeping leadership has increased into 25%. As regards female personnel in peacekeeping ops, women cover 30 percent of civilian personnel, 10 percent of police personnel and only 3 percent of military personnel. These numbers indicate that progress has taken place but we still have a long way to go before we could see more equal numbers of women and men and always in response to effectiveness in peacekeeping operations. Women’s participation in peacekeeping can be instrumental at a certain point, especially when they address conflict related gender based violence while their role is considered important in building participatory societies. At the same time women peacekeepers often function as role models in the regions they operate by galvanizing the conception of equality in society and governance.

What is the particular standing and potential contribution of Greece in the field of gender equality in the larger region of South-Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean?

Europe has recently exited a rather long economic crisis only to face new external political and humanitarian challenges. What is the role of public diplomacy in addressing these challenges?

Nowadays, public diplomacy entails several instruments and policy mechanisms through which wider audiences can be engaged in order address various common challenges. The European Union is known for the slow paces with which it promotes its public diplomacy. The role of public diplomacy is not only to inform external audiences and the EU public about the way in which the EU addresses its challenges. It involves also the implementation of certain policies that render EU citizens and third audiences beneficiaries of these policies. Public Diplomacy is effective when it can produce observable results and thus generate a positive impact on peoples’ minds. These days, the image of the EU regarding its responsiveness in addressing contemporary political or humanitarian challenges does not seem to be commensurate with its budgetary expenses on these issues. This means that its public diplomacy suffers from certain distortions and misconceptions. For example, the fact that most of the EU public does not know that the EU is globally the greatest donor as regards developmental assistance is indicative of the EU’s weakness as regards its Public Diplomacy. This is only a small example indicating the need for a reevaluation of its public diplomacy in order to bring effects to peoples’ hearts and minds within and outside the EU.

On a stricter academic note, the last decades have seen various theoretical approaches to public diplomacy in International Relations, ranging from constructivism or liberal idealism to realism. Would you say that academic trends have shifted throughout this period?

Over the last years, Public Diplomacy has evolved into a key component of states’ strategy. For this reason, a growing number of governments have incorporated major initiatives related to Public Diplomacy into their national security grand strategies. As regards the theoretical approaches to International Relations, one could safely advocate that traditional approaches have been enhanced with new theoretical approaches. Whether we like it or not, Realism is always pertinent and at time prevails in international actors’ behaviour. This applies to both state and non-state actors. However, since International Relations has evolved into a discipline trying to explain and understand a particularly composite, multiple and highly interactive international environment, it would have been a mistake not to embrace other approaches as well in order to clarify certain aspects of international phenomena. In my opinion, a previous euphoria observed almost a decade ago about the alleged prevalence of other theoretical approaches at the expense of realism is gradually vanishing. The reason is that at a time of major systemic changes and power shifts within the international system and amongst great powers, the majority of states struggle for more power and a more established position in the forthcoming new era. In this context, states’ struggle for survival and prevalence is what we do observe. This is pure Realism. We also observe other policy frameworks that have taken place, more noble, more cooperative, more inclusive. These appear as a form of narrative building process that calibrates a power game, which is played between states and even non state actors these days. I wish it was otherwise, but this is how international politics function these days. Even public diplomacy is being used by a number of states today in a very “realist” fashion. Asia is an area of particular interest in this regard.

What is the particular added value of public diplomacy and its synergy potential with other input factors in the overall foreign policy framework?

Public Diplomacy serves a state’s foreign policy as well as its national brand. Public Diplomacy has received a wider interpretation in recent years. It employs a particularly wide range of activities, including policy mechanisms and methods as to generate a very positive and influential narrative in other people’s perceptions and beliefs about a state’s international standing. Communication technologies can be of particular importance in accelerating this construction. Yet, favourable narratives can have a major influential impact on hearts and minds abroad. This can be produced by effective public diplomacy as long as it results from a sober coordination between narrative building and effective policies implemented on the ground. Otherwise, public diplomacy becomes a waste of resources. Frequently, a certain strategic conjuncture can offer opportunities and fertile space for targeted policies related to public diplomacy. For example, a number of EU governments use the months of their presidency in order to accelerate through public diplomacy a certain issue pertaining to their own national interests.

What do you see to be particular opportunities for Greek public diplomacy in the foreseeable future?

Given the improved national profile that Greece currently enjoys after having managed the Covid-19 crisis with a comparative effective fashion, Athens can certainly demonstrate other small success stories especially those related to issues that unite rather than divide nations and governments. Public diplomacy initiatives in the area of human rights, gender equality, the promotion of good governance, conflict prevention and cultural awareness constitute governmental resources that can be effectively allocated in the short to mid-term perspective. Areas where they can be implemented include both Southeastern Europe as well as the MENA region, especially countries with which Athens has already accelerated other forms of cooperation. Promoting capacity building towards weak regional states or states under post-conflict reconstruction can be considered as another necessity related to Greek Public Diplomacy, which needs a serious rejuvenation. Covid-19 has demonstrated that strong policy coordination in the implementation of clear cut objectives produces effective policy results when effective leadership makes things happen. It is also time for Athens to exercise effective transformative leadership in the area of its Public Diplomacy.

*Interview by Dimitris Gkintidis.

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“Death does not scare me. Not being loved does.” | Melina Mercouri (1920-1994)

The Greek Ministry of Culture has declared 2020 as the “Year of Melina Mercouri”, featuring a series of events to mark the 100-year anniversary since the birth of internationally-acclaimed Greek actress, activist and much-loved former Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri. The program kicked off last week (29/1) at the Acropolis Museum, with a presentation of the “Proceedings of the International Workshop for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures” and the screening of a video of Melina Mercouri’s work, with a special focus on her efforts towards the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. This event was chosen to be the inaugural one for the year "because of the efforts Melina made to fulfill a dream we all believe will one day come true, the unification of the Parthenon sculptures on the Parthenon," Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni said.

“I hope to see the Marbles back in Athens before I die. But if they come back later, I shall be reborn” | M. Mercouri on the Parthenon Marbles issue

As it has been announced by the Melina Mercouri Foundation – an Institution founded by Mercouri’s husband and film director Jules Dassin with the aim to keep Melina’s ideas alive and promote Greek culture in Greece and abroad - a series of commemorative events will follow, such as the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation’s exhibition titled “Our own Melina” (26/2), two photo shows at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris (end of March); one that focuses on the efforts for the return of the Parthenon sculptures from Britain and another on antiquities smuggling. In June, singer Alkistis Protopsalti will perform songs associated with Mercouri at Epidaurus' Little Theater.

A large exhibition is also scheduled for July and will run through September at Technopolis cultural venue of the City of Athens, showcasing photos, posters, costumes, Melina’s dressing room and her correspondence with celebrities of her time. Moreover, National Theater Director, Dimitris Lignadis, announced that the Rex National Theater will host the Melina Mercouri’s theatrical awards ceremony at an event dedicated to educating the youth. Last but not least, on the day of Mercouri’s birthday, October 18, a special event titled “Piraeus Celebrates Melina” will take place at the Piraeus Municipal Theater. On the same day, the Melina Mercouri Foundaton and the Ministry of Culture will hold a one-day meeting on Mercouri's initiatives as Minister of Culture, and on her activism, since "Melina was an activist in everything she did" as it was pointed out by Lina Mendoni.

Melina Mercouri was indeed one of the most influential women of Greece in the 20th century, bringing a fire and passion to everything she did; from gracing stage and screen in the early part of her life, to fighting the fascist junta that took control of Greece in 1967 and campaigning for the protection and promotion of culture as a politician. Even though she was born into a prominent Athenian family of politicians, it took over four decades before she became actively involved in politics.

She graduated from Drama School of the National Theatre of Greece in 1944 and a year later, she played Electra in the National Theatre of Greece’s production of Eugene O’ Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra”, but her breakthrough performance was as Blanche Dubois in the 1949 production of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”. Mercouri’s film career took off in the late 1950s and she found international acclaim in the role of Ilia in the Oscar nominated “Never on Sunday”, winning the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1960.

She reprised the role in the 1967 stage version on Broadway. It was during this theatre run in New York, on April 21, that a group of right-wing army officers, led by Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos and Colonels George Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos, seized power in Greece in a coup d’état. When informed of developments in Greece, Mercouri pleaded through American media, “Please don’t go to my country”; as a result, she was deprived of her Greek citizenship, passport and had her property confiscated; butwith her temperament, she embodied the Greek ideal of freedom making the historic statement:

“I was born Greek and I will die Greek. Pattakos was born a fascist and will die a fascist”.

After the fall of the dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in July 1974, Melina Mercouri settled in Greece where she continued her political activity with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement to which she was a founding member, whilst actively involved in the women’s movement, without of course abandoning her career as an actress. In 1981, she became the first woman to head the Greek Ministry of Culture (1981-1989).

Among others, she established the institution of the Cultural Capitals of Europe (with Athens as the first Capital in 1985) and became the spearhead of the Parthenon Marbles return to Greece. Her name became synonymous with this cause so much so that, shortly after her death, UNESCO established the ‘Melina Mercouri International Prize for the Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes (UNESCO-Greece)' which rewards outstanding examples of action to safeguard and enhance the world's major cultural landscapes

Melina Mercouri was able to combine the magic of the performing arts with the realism of politics. But more important to Melina Mercouri was that the love she had for Greek people was returned to her and that her memory is revered and cherished by all.

See also: Remembering Melina- 25 years after

E.S.

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Artemis Leontis is C. P. Cavafy Professor of Modern Greek and Comparative Literature and chair of  the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. Her field of specialization is Modern Greek Studies and her research interests range from the study of Greeks and the Greek language to the idea of Greece cultivated in the West in the modern period. Her latest book, Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins (Princeton University Press, 2019), tells the story of an atypical American philhellene, while at the same time addressing larger issues such as the modern reception of Classical Greece and the challenges posed to the West by Modern Greece. Greek News Agenda* had the opportunity to interview Professor Leontis on her recent research on the life of Eva Palmer Sikelianos, as well as on the present and future of Modern Greek Studies in American academia.

Your recent monograph, Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins (PUP, 2019) depicts the life and work of this atypical American in Greece. How did her vision of Greece differ from established foreign and native views at the time?

Eva Palmer Sikelianos (1874–1952) was a countercultural figure. A New York debutante, she studied ancient Greek and Latin briefly at Bryn Mawr College but left school to pursue an unconventional artistic life. She became a crucial member of the lesbian circle of Natalie Clifford Barney, then moved to Greece and married Angelos Sikelianos. She studied weaving among village women, became proficient in modern Greek, and achieved the status of “master of Byzantine music.” She planned an international school of non-Western school with Khorshed Naoroji, a Parsi woman from Bombay who later joined Gandhi’s non-violent revolution, then abandoned this plan to produce the Delphic Festivals with Sikelianos. In her direction of Prometheus Bound, she brought together techniques from all her previous pursuits. Now, deeply in debt, she returned to U.S. to make a living by directing theater; but the Great Depression followed by World War II limited her prospects. Impoverished and struggling to put a roof over her head, she followed international politics obsessively in the 1940s with an eye to identifying the sources of political repression in Greece. She wrote over two thousand letters to American newspaper editors and politicians supporting democratic forces against the “imperialist tangle” of British and American interests. In 1951, now blacklisted for her criticism of American imperialism, she was denied a visa to travel to Greece in the “Return to Greece” European Recovery Plan. A few weeks before her death, she did manage to return to Greece and was given the funeral of a national hero.

Though classicizing in her interweaving of the Greeks with every aspect of her life, her vision does not align either with established foreign viewpoints, which typically see Greece as an archive of the past, or with Greek views that claim elements of the Greek past as native traditions. I would call it an “in-between,” or “queer” in the fullest sense viewpoint: it problematizes not only gender and sexuality but also nationality, class, politics, and temporality in ways that do not fall neatly into categories.

What I find truly fascinating and actually quite current is her restless striving to realize herself by making herself different: by running against history’s course to reach an impossible transcendent untimeliness.

In what sense does your biographical study of Eva Palmer Sikelianos address larger social issues?

The book addresses the erasure of women, particularly queer women, and other marginal groups from history. This is a major social issue. Patriarchy and homophobia are major social problems. As a cultural biography of Eva Palmer Sikelianos drawing on the abundant, diverse, and richly layered archives of modern receptions of Greco-Roman antiquity, it brings special attention to the kind of systematic erasure of women, gays and lesbians, and other undervalued users of the Greek past from the archive of Greek learning.

Eva Palmer Sikelianos has been strangely invisible in cultural history, even though she is a crucial link connecting the search for new identities and artistic forms in the early twentieth century with classical learning. In Greece, where she is known as Sikelianos’s wife and helper, her story was censored in order to promote a particular legacy of Angelos Sikelianos. Sikelianos actually wrote her out of his account of the making of the Delphic Festivals, and his literary executor, Anna Sikelianos, worked to make inaccessible the sources of Eva Sikelianos’s life that revealed the scope of her polyamorous attachments with women. After her death, people covered over her political opposition to the monarchy. Her work was fitted to the procrustean bed of patriarchal, nationalist, and heteronormative discourses.

This kind of systematic erasure is a matter of social concern because it has shaped the stories we tell ourselves in ways that short circuit our understandings of how things came to be and what they are. For example, the erasure of the transnational, gender queer aspects in the staging of the Delphic Festivals contributed to a Greek national reading of the events. By this I mean that diverse performance aspects developed through her wide range of collaborations have been ignored: from her work on lesbian theatricals to her collaboration with Konstantinos Psachos and intense dialogue with Khorshed Naoroji. This huge oversight has for years given free rein to Greek national interpretations of the popular aesthetic derived from the festivals.

Case studies such as Eva Palmer Sikelianos draw attention to nonspecialist users of ancient sources who turned to Greek antiquity to imagine their social alterity. Moreover, we recognize the contribution of these undervalued creators to cycles of renewal that revise old codes of interpretation to make Greek sources relevant to new generations.

Your work on Eva Palmer Sikelianos reminds us of the inevitable weight of classical heritage on the imagination of modern Greece—on academia included. In what ways can the discipline of Modern Greek Studies negotiate this ambivalent relationship?

I can address the academic side of your question. From the time when Modern Greek Studies emerged as a field in the early 1970s in the U.S., it has been negotiating its relationship with the field of Classics. This has been an institutional matter, since many Modern Greek programs are located in Classics departments; it is also an ongoing, dynamic intellectual concern.

The first Modern Greek programs were housed in Classics departments for an odd assortment of reasons: because a faculty member happened to know modern Greek; graduate students working in Greece wished to learn to communicate in the language; no other modern language department presented itself as a better home; etc. To bridge the disciplinary gap, the first-generation of scholars drew connections of recent Greek literary works with the classical heritage. They pointed to the persistence of good writing from Homer to Cavafy, Sikelianos, Seferis, and Elytis—some of the poets they singled out for their powerful self-expression against the background of a weighty literary inheritance.

A decade later, scholars studying contemporary Greece from a broader set of disciplines took a more critical, nuanced stance on the relationship of Greece with the past. Many works stand out: Ours Once More(1982), Michael Herzfeld’s account of the emergence of folklore in nineteenth-century Greece, mapping out the intertwined perspectives of newly liberated Greeks and Westerners who expected them to prove their ancient ancestry; Vassilis Lambropoulos’s Literature as National Institution(1988) identifying the nation building aspects of Modern Greek literature; Stathis Gourgouris in Dream Nation (1996) advancing the argument that Greece functioned figuratively both as an alibi for the cultural ideal of colonialist Europe, and as an unpredictable institution unraveling the certainty of European history. My first book, Topographies of Hellenism (1995) on the contrapuntal relationship of foreigners’ projections of their idea of Greece on the Greek landscape and Greek literary modernist’s reterritorializations of them, was part of this project.

I bring these up as examples of the kind of politically conscious scholarship appearing in Modern Greek Studies in the 1980s and 1990s that identified the classical as part of the self-figuration of the West and represented contemporary Greece as a living, changing context within which the classical has been continuously reworked and reimagined. With respect to Classical studies, scholars in Modern Greek studies were trendsetters in their insistence on paying attention to the contexts in which the cultural construct of a classical heritage gained its enduring power and versatility.

In important ways, Modern Greek Studies functioned as a precursor to Classical Reception Studies, the subfield of Classics emerging in the late 1990s that studies the contexts in which the texts, materials, and ideas of Greece and Rome have been received and reimagined. At the University of Michigan, the endowment in 1999 of the C. P. Cavafy Professorship in Modern Greek contributed to the creation of “Contexts for Classics,” the interdisciplinary faculty consortium that explores the reception of classical antiquity. Modern Greek Studies thus became a crucial voice making Classics aware of the critical importance of context and ideology.

Today, the classical and its legacies in the West are under scrutiny as never before. As Chair of the Department of Classical Studies, I am seeing the most concerted effort from within the Classical studies to dismantle the Eurocentrism of the field. It is an unfortunate sign of the lingering power imbalances handicapping Greece, however, that only a few classicists—Joanna Hanink stands out—point to the ways that idealized classical imagery is deployed to denigrate Greeks still today.

Meanwhile Modern Greek studies programs institutionally located in Classics departments continue to grow in numbers, with the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana, UCLA, and UC Santa Barbara announcing the most recent new hires. This puts scholars of Modern Greek in a position of responsibility as never before. We must continue to bring attention to the ideological construction of a classical heritage that excluded people living in supposedly classical lands. This work requires allying ourselves with scholars in other fields and working side by side with them to dismantle exclusive claims of ownership of the past.

What would you consider to be the main developments in the study of Modern Greece, and how do these communicate with more general trends in the Humanities?

I’ve already referred to several major developments: studies that pay attention to gender and sexuality; work that is comparative and crosses national lines; critical, politically engaged work on heritage. Once upon a time, we studied Modern Greek figures and sources in isolation. Now our view of Greece has become transcultural, transnational, and comparative. I’ve also talked about the shifting relationship of Modern Greek studies within Classics, which speaks to the more general trend to foster diversity in the Humanities by dismantling old hierarchies of power. These are all developments in Modern Greek studies that communicate with more general trends.

Another very exciting trend is the relatively new field of Modern Greek archaeology. This is a form of historical archaeology dealing with material sources for which there are written records and oral histories that help to contextualize them. Susan Sutton was a pioneer as an anthropologist working on the Nemea Project. Yannis Hamilakis’s archival and material excavation of the concentration camps on Makronissos was groundbreaking. Kostis Kourelis’s trans-Atlantic Deserted Greek Villages project moving between abandoned Greek villages and immigrant neighborhoods in Philadelphia is truly innovative. Some students of Classical archaeology have begun to draw lessons from these projects to apply their methods to interface more directly with surrounding communities in Greece and other countries where they work.

In undergraduate education, we have been introducing new pedagogies in language instruction, including classroom technologies that bring students in contact with their peers in Greece. Translation has reappeared in language classes at an advanced intermediate level to help students build linguistic and cultural knowledge and appreciate the challenges of intercultural literacy. These connect with trends in the Humanities that highlight evolving pedagogies and recognize the dynamic and omnipresent role of translation in a globalized world where translators are active participants bearing ethical responsibility in geopolitical conflicts. These and other pedagogical innovations place Modern Greek studies at the cutting edge of efforts in the Humanities to train students not just as learners but as culturally literate citizens in a global world.

The heavy emphasis on the relationship between Greece and “the West” is a recurrent theme in works pertaining to Modern Greece. Would you consider that this runs the risk of recasting structural asymmetries into “cultural difference”?

It depends on how precisely the work addresses the relationship of Greece and the West. Let’s take the example of English-language articles on Greece’s relationship to Europe during the debt crisis. These have tended to do exactly what you say: posit Greece’s fundamental cultural difference from the West to make claims that Greece does not belong as an equal partner in the West. In this case, cultural difference is part of the discursive practice of the West that creates structural asymmetries by stereotyping and degrading, and so justifying actions that subjugate them. A complement to this is cultural work that asserts something exceptional and fundamentally non-Western about Greece. The latter is a strategy of setting Greeks apart that partakes in the same discursive practice separating the West from the rest even as it tries to overturn structural asymmetries.

The scholarly strategy that matters today differentiates itself from the preceding by actually highlighting structural asymmetries in the relationship of Greece in the West. It addresses questions of power and analyzes the complex set of ideas and images that have made ancient Greece a cornerstone of the West while marginalizing contemporary Greece. By analyzing how the West, in its execution of power, asserts its superiority in the world, and how Greeks adapt notions of themselves borrowed from the West in ways that sometimes overturn them—this strategy has the opposite effect. It recasts cultural difference to bring to light the kinds of structural asymmetries that have been haunting Modern Greece since its inception.

You were recently appointed C. P. Cavafy Professor of Modern Greek and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. What are the new initiatives planned from your new position?

Two prevailing conditions mark my taking this position. One is the status of Modern Greek studies at the University of Michigan. For the past twenty years, I have been part of the development of full-fledged Modern Greek Program offering a major and minor in Modern Greek and PhD opportunities in many departments. Under the leadership of Vassilis Lambropoulos, with the crucial contribution of Despina Margomenou, we have taught thousands of undergraduates, granted nearly 200 degrees, supervised honors theses and prize winning PhDs work, placed and supported students in internships and jobs, hosted hundreds of events featuring scholars from across the world, organized exhibits, built a substantial library collection, and communicated by way of our program’s website with the broader community worldwide. The position of the C P. Cavafy Professorship is endowed. This is a beautiful, strong, wide-ranging program.

The second condition is the canonical status of C. P. Cavafy. When Michigan named the endowed professorship in Modern Greek after Cavafy, he was already the best known poet in Modern Greek. I curated the exhibit “Cavafy’s World” with Lauren E. Talalay in 2002, and hundreds of people attended the opening. We extended the exhibit several months to accommodate visitors. Our companion book “‘What these Ithakas mean…’: Readings in Cavafy,” went through its first run quickly. The Times Literary Supplement listed it as one of the best books of the year. Our work was good, but its reception also showed that Cavafy has a central place in the universe of writers.

In this environment, my strategy is not to duplicate what has already been accomplished but to work selectively for maximum impact. Modern Greek studies at Michigan will remain at the cutting edge through attention to pedagogies, curriculum, and support of scholarly and artistic exchange. Regarding Cavafy’s work, I will continue to publish new work on the Cavafy Forum, a platform on our program’s Modern Greek website supporting debates, bibliographies, scholarly commentary, and creative work. For example, last fall I published “Greek Necropolis,” a poem by Peter Jeffreys accompanied by his essay, “The Greek Necropolis at Norwood.” I’ve just learned that the publication has inspired a campaign to restore he monuments of West Norwood. Next will be a bibliography of the substantial body of musical compositions and songs responding to Cavafy’s poetry.

Cavafy is canonical, as I said before, and so I consider it my responsibility also to bring attention to forgotten or undiscovered work. Of older authors, who has been overlooked and is crying out for translation? Of contemporary artists, who should be supported? Here are two initiatives:

One is to offer short visiting residencies by emerging scholars and artists, including poets, writers, translators, musicians, and visual and performing artists from Greece. I began this work in 2016 with the invitation of Cacao Rocks and Olga Alexopoulou, artists in residence at the Institute for the Humanities. These are made possible by a recent gift from Kathleen L. Vakalo, wife of the late Emmanuel George Vakalo, professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, and daughter-in-law of artist George Vakalo and poet Eleni Vakalo. The Vakalo name is known throughout Greece for the wide range of contributions to the arts, education and cultural activism. I want to open the door for young people from Greece with worthy projects to make use of the resources of this university and inspire and be inspired through dialogue with faculty and students.

My second planned initiative is to create and edit an active Anglophone book series for exciting interdisciplinary work in Modern Greek Studies with the University of Michigan Press. Nothing analogous to this exists, even though there is marvelous work in line to be published. I saw some of this work during my five years as the Humanities editor of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies. I am hopeful that this will happen, and if it does, I think it can be a game-changing project.

*Interview by Dimitris Gkintidis

D.G.

The post Rethinking Greece: Artemis Leontis on the cultural biography of Eva Palmer Sikelianos and the modern reception of Classical Greece appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Nancy Fraser is Henry and Louise A. Loeb Professor of Philosophy and Politics at the New School for Social Research and one of the world's leading thinkers in political and social theory. She has been Einstein Fellow of the city of Berlin, and holder of the “Global Justice” Chair at the Collège d’études mondiales in Paris. She works on social and political theory, feminist theory, and contemporary French and German thought.

Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political-Philosophical Exchange - the book in which she and Axel Honneth debated the question of redistribution versus recognition - has become mandatory reading for all those interested in social justice. Her recent publications include Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World (2008), Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis (2013) and Contradictions of capital and care (New Left Review, 2016). Her current research includes a book-in-progress on Abnormal Justice i.e. on "how the struggles for justice are organised, or rather, disorganised, in a period in which we can not count on a grammar of justice that can be recognised as hegemonic".

Professor Fraser is also an active public intelectual that regularly participates in open seminars, discussions and gives interviews (Public seminar; Dissent; openDemocracy; Eurozine; The Guardian; Monthly Review), while she has recently co-signed together with major intelectuals an open letter to European leaders and European institutions to avoid additional austerity measures, deliver humanitarian aid and restructure Greece's debt.

Professor Fraser was recenty in Greece, invited by the Nicos Poulantzas Institute, in order to deliver the 10th Annual Nicos Poulantzas Memorial Lecture. The lecture, under the title “Crises of care: The contradictions of social reproduction in the era of financial capitalism” was given at the Athens' Goethe Institute, on 7.12.2016, with an intoduction to Nancy Fraser and her work by Maria Karamessini, Professor in Labour Economics and Economics of the Welfare State at Panteion University.

Nancy Fraser spoke to Rethinking Greece* about a viable Left vision for the 21th century, the EU project, the question of solidarity both internationally and in Europe and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony in the world. "Anti-austerity in one country is impossible", says Fraser commenting on Greek politics, adding  that "a setback here or there does not mean the end of the Left project". She also gives her insight on the recent US election and the formation of reactionary populism along with "progressive neoliberalism", as well as on the issue of social movements becoming "interest groups" deprived of their anticapitalist, radical roots. Fraser also stresses the importance of thinking about social reproduction and social protection internationally and in terms of global finance as well as on the need to consider "non, or post-capitalist possibilities" when tackling these issues:

The social movements that developed in Greece after 2011 seem to have died down after the signing of the 3rd memorandum in 2015, Podemos in Spain has not been able to fulfill their electoral potential and right-wing nationalism is on the rise.  Do you think that the European Left has lost its ability to inspire popular movements?

I think that these things develop in fits and starts, not in a smooth line. So I wouldn’t assume that a setback here or there means the end of the Left project. We had all the Occupy and Indignados movements throughout the world, and I would say that Spain and Greece were really the only countries, at least in Europe and North America, who managed to develop something out of those movements: people found a form to institutionalize, at least temporarily, those energies, instead of letting them totally disappear.  That is a positive, but it is a different matter as to whether a government can deliver the full set of demands and aspirations of the participants in those movements, or more generally, of the citizens.

The sad part of the Greek experience was frankly, the failure of the Left in other European countries to mobilize in solidarity and to put pressure on governments to change the EU policy, and to insist that the Troika back-off and give Greece some room to breathe. I don’t think there is much that could have been done within one country. We used to talk about “socialism in one country”, well anti-austerity in one country is not easy to do when you have a whole transnational structure of investors, European bureaucrats and Central Banks bearing down on you. So I think that for the long term, the only real answer is a broader, international solidarity among the Left. And that will take some time, for sure. 

The other thing I would say is that we are all struggling to figure out what a viable and attractive Left vision and project is for the 21th century. Most people have given up the idea of anything like the command economy in the Soviet sense. There is a lot of interest in de-growth and the commons, solidarity and social economy. But I don’t think yet any of this adds up to a real viable project for the Left.  The most important thing is that there is now a major crisis of neoliberal hegemony: in country after country, in waves, people are rejecting that. They don’t necessarily have a viable and defensible project for what to replace it with. This is the beginning of what would be a long process. These things don’t get solved quickly.

What to you think Brexit and the recent vote in Italy could mean for the future of the EU project?

It does seem that the EU project is quite shaky at the moment, and one possibility is that the elites will decide to soften their austerity policies and do more Keynsian type spending. There is even a chance that Donald Trump will do something like this in the US. It is one of the ideas he campaigned on, whether he’ll follow through I don’t know.  So there might be a softening of the current austerity regime, but the big question for me is the relocation of manufacturing from the European and North American core countries to the semi-periphery. I don’t think that’s coming back, so this does mean that there is a big question mark over the issue of jobs, and I am talking now about jobs that have some security and that pay a decent wage.

The biggest challenge for whoever is in power, whether it’s an chastened European elite that has been neoliberal and decides that their project is in danger and they are going to shift ground a little bit, or whether it’s a Left or Right populist party, is going to be jobs and social protection of various kinds, support for social reproduction.  That requires a tremendous amount of spending, deficit spending. And the question is, first of all, how to get out from under the control of the Central Banks and bond markets who drive the interest rates up to the sky. One idea for the Left, that is very important, would be to think about some new way of organizing finance. Credit is necessary in any economy, of any complexity, but it doesn’t have to be a profit making industry. So one idea that some people have been developing, is to think about how to transform finance into a public utility, like electricity for example. You could have some democratic way of administration, where you allocate credit and loans for projects without trying to please shareholders and investors.

All these things are connected: finance, jobs policy, taxation and what’s going to be the distribution of taxation. Because in the last 20-30 years there has been a major ‘tax strike’ of the wealthy and the corporations, who are paying virtually no taxes. In the US and many northern European countries there has been a huge turning upside down of the arrangements of the social democratic era, when corporations paid significant taxes. They don’t any longer, and that’s part of what neoliberalism did. So, that creates tremendous constrains on what governments can and cannot do. They lack the revenue. They can’t squeeze it out of the ordinary people who then go on a ‘tax revolt’ and vote for right-wing parties that promise no taxes. And when they try, in any one country again, to significantly raise taxes on corporations, then you get the flight of capital elsewhere and the race to the bottom. So, that’s another indication as to why one has to think internationally about these questions.

Some analysts claim that Donald Trump won the election because the Democratic Party put too much emphasis on identity politics (race, gender) and not enough on economic issues. Do you agree with this assessment?

Partially. I think in this election, in the immediate situation, the voters were faced with the choice between two options, which I would call reactionary populism and progressive neoliberalism. On the Trump side, the populist part was where the people say they want a government that protects them, that does what it can to ensure that they have stable jobs, income and family life. In my mind, this is a completely justified and legitimate expectation. But that was entwined with the reactionary part, this tendency to scapegoating: it’s the fault of the immigrants, of the Blacks, of the Muslims, of the gays, of the feminists. So you had mixed together legitimate claims for social protection, social security, economic wellbeing with all the scapegoating.

Then on the Clinton side, what I call the progressive neoliberalism side, you have on the contrary, positive claims for the inclusion of Blacks, Muslims, gays, LGBT, women; demands that you should not organize the social world on exclusion and subordination. That is the progressive side, but that does not get linked not to anything like the social protection policy that the Trump side had. It gets linked instead with the dynamic sectors of our economy, which are finance, information technology, media and entertainment, and which support a policy of so-called free trade, open borders, all the free trade agreements and the deregulation of finance.

So, these are two strange groups. If you want to think about it on terms of redistribution and recognition, you could say that on the Clinton side you have progressive recognition and regressive distribution, whereas on the Trump side, you have regressive recognition, plus something closer to a quasi social-democratic interest in social security and social protection. And that is a big re-alignment of politics. Because in a New Deal era you had something like a progressive element on both redistribution and recognition. Now those things have split apart.

I feel that the way Hilary Clinton run her campaign, especially in later stages, was focused, almost exclusively, on a kind of moral condemnation of Trump’s individual badness: He says these things about women, about disabled people, about Muslims, he is a person of prejudice and of ignorance. She made the whole campaign about him, and in the process tarred the base of his supporters, calling them “a basket of deplorables”. I don’t believe that all, or even a majority of Trump’s supporters are racists and homophobes. They are very frustrated, they are not maybe politically well educated. US political culture is poor, there is not enough of a Left voice that gives people any sense that there are other possibilities. Given what was available to them, it’s quite understandable that they voted the way they did. Clinton thought that she could run a campaign exclusively on a highly moralized version of recognition. And, as it turned out, she got a lot of votes, but the way our system works, that wasn’t a winning strategy.

Do you think Donald Trump’s victory signals a shift of the electorate toward right-wing nationalism?

Like I said in the beginning, things are very much in flux now, this it is not a settled matter. It could go into a much more right-wing and nationalist direction, but it could also go into a more left direction. In the US we can see that in the success of the Bernie Sanders campaign, which came very close to getting the nomination away from Hilary Clinton. She had every bit of the bureaucracy, of the machinery of the Democratic Party behind her, she was the anointed successor to Obama; everybody thought this was a foregone conclusion. And this guy comes out of nowhere and suddenly inspires millions and millions of people. That to me reflects the spirit of Occupy, not just the young people in the squares, but the broad support beyond the squares that Occupy got, which was 60%-70% nationally according to the polls at the time.

This shows is that there is a body of sentiment in the country that at some level agrees with the Occupy language on the 1%. That was very powerful language, it rung a bell. People knew what that meant, and they felt very strongly that that was true and should be changed. Sanders’ version of that was to use the word “rigged”. It’s a “rigged” economy, a “rigged” political system. That was another way of saying that there is a deep structural unfairness in the society, something that really resonated.

Later, Trump copied this language from Sanders and started himself talking about the rigged system, adding the phrase that ‘no one could fix this better’ than he could, because he knows how it works from the inside. He talked about how the people who run the banks, the government and the big corporations are “killers”. This is an amazing way to talk about the corporate elite. It’s true, but no one says these things. Overall, I think it’s highly likely that Trump as president will end up disappointing many of the people who voted for him, and there will be another battle over this, this is not the end. This body of sentiment is inchoate, it’s not fully formed, and it can be articulated in a number of different ways.

You have written about how the emancipatory claims of the feminist, anti-racist or LGTB movements have been hijacked by neoliberalism and redefined in market terms. Can you talk more about this?

I am from the 1968 generation, and I participated in the New Left and in the movements that grew in a very immediate way out of the New Left, including early second wave feminism, the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement. In that period, there was a kind of ethos in the atmosphere that everyone was anti-capitalist. And everyone understood that whatever the issues, whether it was foreign policy, or gender subordination, or racial oppression, they were structural issues that had to be addressed at the root. And the root had to do with capitalism. As the New Left faded, that atmosphere shifted and then what happened in the US is that the normal political culture re-asserted itself. The normal political culture being interest group pluralism, meritocratic individualism and the idea that individuals differ in their talents and some can go further than others. This is the norm, we have a culture of voluntarism that says that how you well do in life is of a matter of your will and how hard you are willing to work, to save money etc.

So this culture does not change, except in very special periods, almost revolutionary, or crisis periods. But in the normal periods, that is the mindset and every issue gets filtered through these assumptions. It takes an almost heroic effort against the grain, uphill, to challenge that and to develop and maintain a worldview that really insists on the deep structural roots and tries to relate specific experiences and injustices to the deep structural issues. It’s not surprising that in the US, under these conditions, the drift in every social movement over the last 30 or 40 years has been toward a form of liberalism. Liberal feminism, liberal anti-racism, liberal LGBT politics… These are about removing barriers that hold people from advancing. From advancing up the corporate ladder, even up the military ladder. One of the first LGBT claims, before marriage equality, was gays in the military. And of course these are just claims, but in many of these cases people are taking for granted that we live in a hierarchical society, and don’t challenge that hierarchy, but just seek to remove some barriers so that the talented Blacks, the talented women, the talented Muslims and gays and lesbians can also rise.

We call them social movements, but I don’t think they are social movements, I think now they are interest groups: they are not really in the streets very often, only occasionally. One exception would be the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which is new, and it is a real movement that potentially has a much more radical orientation and agenda. But I think that feminism has become normalized in the US.

Basically what has happened is that these movements, or interest groups, have succeeded in winning the battle for “right thinking”. People know that they are not supposed to say the kind of things that Donald Trump says. So we have on the one hand the ideological, cultural shift in values and you have a lot of the media reflecting that. In television shows, in Holywood films you often have feminist twists in a vulgar sense, or there are always Blacks in positions of power. That’s going on in one level, but the real situation of the mass of African-Americans or Latinos, or of women deteriorates. Under the new economy, the relocation of manufacturing jobs was an especially severe blow for African-Americans. So it’s not like their material situation is better, I would say it’s worse than before the civil rights movement. The living situation of everybody was worsened, except for the 10% say of people who are doing well.

So, the ideological victory of the so-called social movements is a quite complicated affair in itself. It’s obviously positive, but because it is perceived, rightly so to some degree, as being part and parcel of neoliberalization, openness to the world, cosmopolitanism and sophistication, it gets read by people who consider themselves the losers of globalization and neoliberalization, people suffering in the Rust Belt or other areas that are declining, as a insult, that they are being preached at, looked down on and neglected, while others are being favored.

Social reproduction work (taking care of children and the elderly, maintaining the household etc), is devalued (not paid/underpaid) and at the same time absolutely necessary for capitalism. You have identified this as a structural contradiction of capitalism that is becoming even more acute now. Do you think this issue can be solved within capitalism?

I would say first of all, that capitalism has shown a surprising capacity to re-invent itself in many forms and I don’t think we can exclude the possibility that it will do that again. But, through what form, and what new political alignments or other forces would create that, that’s a little unclear. During the New Deal/ social democratic era, there was a provisional solution, although it didn’t work for everybody. It was premised on exclusions of various kinds, but you could say for a significant number of working-class people in the wealthier countries of the capitalist world, there was a way of balancing paid work and unpaid social reproductive activity. So that was a provisional solution, at least for some.

If you think along those lines, and how can we do something like that, but in a way that overcomes the exclusions and injustices that were built into it, then you would have to think in terms of a global regime. I don’t mean a sort of world state, I mean something like what the EU is saying about harmonizing social policies, but not just within Europe, much more broadly. Because now, one of the ways that neoliberalism tries to deal with this problem is to import migrant women to do very low-wage, precarious and highly supervised intrusive domestic work for the professional managerial middle class and upper middle class. So it has to be something global, it cannot be premised on anything like a male breadwinner / female homemaker model, it has to include no-heterosexual families, it was to overcome the racial/ethnical divisions of labour that assign the dirtiest and least well-paid forms of care, like working in nursing homes to people of colour.

I think that is the best that capitalism could do and I don’t know if it can do it. But I think we could adopt an agnostic view. Meaning, this is what we need to have, we will keep an open mind, if capitalism can give it to us, so much the better, if not, too bad for capitalism. I think you don’t have to decide now how it’s going to be. You can push for this, and as movements grow and radicalize they will start having to think about what are the obstacles to this. Global finance is going to be one and there is also an ecological question that is very pressing, because one thing is clear: if you try to universalize something like the high-carbon footprint consumer’s lifestyle of the European and North American middle classes to the whole world, it would be completely ecologically unsustainable. One would have to think about how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together and then again see whether there is a form of capitalism that could be invented. It doesn’t exist now, no one even knows exactly what it would look like. We’ll see. But in the meantime, we should also be thinking about non or post-capitalist possibilities too.

*Interview by Ioulia Livaditi 

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