The Hypocrisy of European Moralism: Greece and the Politics of Cultural Aggression
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Speaker
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Professor Michael Herzfeld
Professor of the Social Sciences and Curator of European Ethnology in the Peabody Museum, Harvard University
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Chair
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Professor Kevin Featherstone
Hellenic Observatory Director, LSE
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Venue
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Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE
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Date
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Wednesday, 4 November 2015
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Time
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18.30-20.00
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Poster
Abstract
Over nearly two centuries, Greeks were forced to fit their national culture to the antiquarian desires of Western powers, inhabiting a “non-modern” time and a marginal geo-political space. The West supported conservative politicians who maintained Greece’s status as a “backward” client state, while reproducing that inequity in their exploitation of their electoral constituents. Western moralism about alleged Greek “corruption,” “laziness,” and “irresponsibility” thus occludes the West’s own complicity in generating these attitudes. Greece and its patrons must now equally face daunting consequences; a balanced admission of shared responsibility would be a good start.
Biography
Professor Michael Herzfeld was educated at the Universities of Cambridge (B.A. in Archaeology and Anthropology, 1969), Athens (non-degree program in Greek Folklore, 1969-70), Birmingham (M.A., Modern Greek Studies, 1972; D.Litt., 1989); and Oxford (Social Anthropology, D.Phil., 1976). Before moving to Harvard, he taught at Vassar College (1978-80) and Indiana University (1980-91) (where he served as Associate Chair of the Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies, 1980-85, and as Chair of the Department of Anthropology, 1987-90). Lord Simon Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester in 1994, he has also taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (1995), Paris, at the Università di Padova (1992), the Università di Roma “La Sapienza” (1999-2000), and the University of Melbourne (intermittently since 2004), and has held a visiting research appointments at the Australian National University and the University of Sydney (1985), at the University of Adelaide, and at the Université de Paris-X (Nanterre) (1991).
His current research activity includes completion of a book and a film about historic conservation and eviction in Bangkok and planned new research on Italian-Chinese interactions in Rome and on the profession of town planning in Italy and elsewhere.
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