What is 'modern' about Modern Greece?
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Date
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Friday, 7 November 2014
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Time
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18:30 - 20:00
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Venue
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Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE
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Chair
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Professor Kevin Featherstone, Hellenic Observatory Director, LSE;
Eleftherios Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies & Professor of European Politics
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Opening Speakers
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Professor Molly Greene, Department of History and Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton University
Professor Vassilis Lambropoulos, C.P. Cavafy Professor of Modern Greek, Professor of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan
Professor Stathis Kalyvas, Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence, Yale University
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What is ‘modern’ about ‘Modern Greece’ is a provocative title. Even the notion of ‘Modern’ Greece is a concept with a baggage of assumptions. And the meaning of ‘modernity’ is a contested one across different national contexts. Is ‘modernity’ in this case simply a matter of emulating Western Europe, for example? Can we assume a single definition or a linear process of development? How does the euro-zone crisis complement or contradict such understandings? Is Greece more or less ‘modern’ than other bail-out states? Alternatively, is the very act of self-reflection or of interrogating the salience of ‘modernity’ an indication of the description itself? What can a longer historical perspective – highlighting the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ - teach us about the extent of socio-cultural change since the creation of the Modern Greek state? Is this a core contribution to be made by Modern Greek Studies?
These important questions – and others – were explored in the panel discussion. ‘Kick-start’ contributions were made by professors Vassilis Lambropoulos (Michigan); Stathis Kalyvas (Yale); and Molly Greene (Princeton), followed by many valuable contributions from the audience.The latter comprised other professors of Modern Greek Studies, from the UK and abroad, who each had attended a private (business) symposium during the day.
For more information on the private symposium please click here
EVENT PHOTOS
Professor Kevin Featherstone opens the panel
The audience in the Hong Kong Theatre
Professor Vassilis Lambropoulos,C.P. Cavafy Professor of Modern Greek, Professor of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan
Professor Stathis Kalyvas,Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence, Yale University
Professor Molly Greene,Department of History and Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton University
The panel debate continued with arguments brought forward by audience members
Photography supplied courtesy of Antonios Fiala- A.Fiala@lse.ac.uk