Proceedings of the 5th Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, 2003

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This volume of the fifth Biennial Conference Proceedings contains 35 refereed articles in English and Greek text, including articles on:

  • Classical Greek Philosophy
  • Greek Australian Literature
  • Modern Greek Literature
  • Contemporary History: Greeks and Cypriots at Home and Abroad
  • Modern Greek Language and Culture in Australian Schools
  • Aspects of Greek Culture Past and Present
  • Greek Australian Education
  • Greek Australian Politics
  • Linguistics
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      Σκιές, αντικατοπτρισμοί και αναδίπλωση: Η μυθοπλαστική “περιπέτεια” του Στέλιου Ξεφλούδα
      (Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek, 2005) Palaktsoglou, Maria
      Please note: This article is in Greek. In this paper I will examine the “adventures” on narrative structure of Stelios Xefloudas. Stelios Xefloudas, a Greek writer of the Generation of the thirties was educated in both Greece and France and was an advocate of interior monologue and innovative novel in his country. During the thirties he wrote four innovative novels: Τα Τετράδια του Παύλου Φωτεινού (1930), Εσωτερική Συμφωνία (1932), Εύα (1934) and Στο Φως του Λευκού Αγγέλου (1936). These four novels are written with the technique of interior monologue and they explore themes such as the recording of the unconscious process, the dreamy state of self and escapism. Through these novels we’ll examine Xefloudas’ capacity in “constructing” female characters. For the writer it seems that character “construction” is a long and hard process regulated by his views on fiction as well as his personal limitations or impediments on narrative structure.
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      Πεντζίκης: Αγκαζέ
      (Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek, 2005) Tsianikas, Michael
      Please note: This article is in Greek. In this paper which is a chapter of a forthcoming book publication on the literary work of N. G. Pentzikis, I examine the notion of “engagement”. I begin with a text published in the journal Paramilito in which we are informed that in 1941 the close circle of Pentzikis’ friends were very upset because when walking through the city of Thessaloniki the author wanted to walk linked together arm to arm. They expressed their objection but Pentzikis insisted this attitude has nothing to do with an accepted or unaccepted social practice but was a profound engagement to become united (omoousios) with the other persons. The author’s attitude of course is identical towards not only the physical presence of others, but also to the function of language, narrative structures, aesthetical approach, social ideologies, myths and religion. To put it in other words, Pentzikis abandons himself in the “hands” of things, events and situations that occur. On the creative level someone can test this engagement in every single page of his writings but in this paper I examine the above through some concrete themes e.g. “icon”, “surface”, “scheme” “hero” and so on. Another important question that arises here is the issue of continuity/discontinuity in the narrative construction of writing text. Pentzikis always tries to address this issue by engaging himself in an unstoppable multitude of narrations, from where the most foreign and distant elements are fusing together. At the end of the paper I refer to a discursive engagement between Pentzikis and George Seferis from where someone can understand that their fundamental differences produce two completely opposite aesthetic directions. We now know that for a variety of reasons over the last fifty years George Seferis’ vision of dis-engagement has dominated the Greek intellectual life.
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      Το απομακρυσμένο “Σήμερα” στην πεζογραφία της περιόδου 1960–1975
      (Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek, 2005) Spilias, Thanasis
      Please note: This article is in Greek. With regard to thematic approaches, what concerns writers of the period 1960-1975 and what motivates them most is mainly the present. The past appears to occupy them very little. And when it does, it is, in essence, a “distant present”. I support this claim by specific reference to, and analyses of R. Roufos’s novel Οι Γραικύλοι and M. Koumandareas’s short story Τα Μηχανάκια. I contend that though both of these writers talk about the past, what they want to project is their contemporary historic reality.
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      Η έννοια του Άλλου στο έργο της Μιμίκας Κρανάκη Φιλέλληνες: 24 γράμματα μιας Οδύσσειας
      (Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek, 2005) Nazou, Panayiota
      Please note: This article is in Greek. In this paper we analyse the notion of the Other and Otherness within networks of power relations, as depicted in Mimika Kranaki’s novel "Philhellenes: 24 letters of an Odyssey". We focus on the representational strategies of conscious and unconscious conflicts, as manifested in situations of cultural overlapping and existential osmosis. In a revealing manner, Kranaki’s novel illustrates the ambivalent relations between the Same and the Other and, simultaneously, their very complementarity. Beyond its painful process, according to Kranaki, the encounter with the Other is an ascesis of Self-transcendence, and expansion of the borders of the essential human being. Ultimately the encounter with the Other not only expands the limits of the Self but also establishes its specific topos in history.
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      Ο “χώρος” στα μυθιστορήματα του Γ. Θεοτοκά
      (Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek, 2005) Moustakatou, Katerina
      Please note: This article is in Greek. This article examines the notion of “place” in George Theotokas’ novels, a Greek writer and essayist. To be more specific spatial elements control functions in the novel because certain actions occur in certain places. The “place” illustrates the plot of the novels and contributes to the evolution of the characters, in other words as Genette wrote: the place speaks! The place internal or external, urban or rural, constructed or natural influences the behavior of heroes and determine their actions by giving its own symbolisms. My point of view and my remarks concern Theotokas’ novels — Argo (1936), Daimonio (1938), Leonis (1940), Astheneis kai Odoiporoi (1964) and Kampanes (1970) — in the way the use of many important landscapes and cities affect the way of thinking and acting of the characters and give us some important conclusions based on this textual material.
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      Γυναίκα, ανάγνωση και μυθιστόρημα. Αναγνώστριες και αναγνώσεις του έργου της Γ. Σάνδη στην Ελλάδα του XIX αιώνα
      (Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek, 2005) Lalagianni, Vasiliki
      Please note: This article is in Greek. The different image that the woman of letters has at times held in society can also be detected in the literary works of every age, where the educated heroine — a reader of literary works, particularly fiction — is sometimes reviled, frowned upon and presented with an ironic disposition, and at other times — more rarely and mainly in works with an educational dimension — is presented in a positive light, with the aim of being presented as an example. From the 17th to the 19th century, woman writers (Mlle Lheritier, Mme d’Aulnoy, Mlle de Scudery, Mme de Genlis, Germaine de Staël, etc) attempted to replace the negative image of lettered women through their works. Women authors, whilst escaping the role that society has confined them to, have to face a two-fold problem: to confirm their right to write, and to persuade their detractors that they can write without sacrificing any of their femininity. The work of George Sand expresses the desire for a change in mentality as deserved by women readers and creators. The engagement of Sand’s work in Greece reveals several negative aspects: on one hand, the discussion frequently focuses on the gender identity of her writing since critical and ideological thought attribute a degrading position to women writers in the world of literature. On the other hand, it appears that the work of Sand is not excluded from the climate of the age which considers the consequences of reading fiction to be morally and ethnically harmful.