The working class and the Rebrain narrative

Where is the (diasporic and Greek) working-class in the rebrain/reload/restart narrative? The narrative is a selling point for a selective class of professionals serving certain sectors of the transnational/global neoliberal economy (private colleges, internationally minded corporations).

But the narrative constitutes a hubris in ignoring the predicament of new generations of educated Greeks who confront an abysmal job market. I know of a great many bright young people who feel trapped in a limited, often patriarchal, and nepotistic system.

But this is not about case studies. This is about a structural problem. It is heart breaking to be witnessing the loss of promising generations. Greece has failed them. A critique of the conditions that led to this situation and a vision for internal reforms than a celebration of any rebranding successes is the priority of institutions fostering engaged citizenship.

In the meantime, in the home (US) front a coterie of millionaires and cultural gatekeepers urges the next generation to persist resiliently in the arduous climb to the top while the sociological and economic realities mediating class mobility are seen as litter in the individual-centered path to success. The ahistorical "struggle and success myth" - a staple of Greek American ideology – now in the service of the neoliberal order, notably by those who take pride in Hellenic paideia...

Yiorgos Anagnostou

December 2025

Narrating American History – Telling Greek American history: A dramatic contrast

In anticipation to the forthcoming Ergon initiative "Voices of the Other Greek America"

The recent documentary series The American Revolution is more than an engrossing telling of a foundational event for the nation. It represents a multilayered narrative which applies significant insights that US historiography has been contributing toward understanding the past. It tells the story from multiple perspectives––patriots, loyalists, farmer and artisan soldiers, the elite, men and women, native American Indians, enslaved and freed blacks. Rather than sanitizing the past, it places the ideals that motivated the revolution in its political and economic context. The envisioned liberty did not largely apply to the enslaved black people. It further connected with the goal of imperial expansion, the acquisition of property, which translated to land dispossession for Native American Indians. The narrative builds on this polyphony, including the perspective of a multitude of historians. It recognizes class divisions, noting ruefully that it was the lower socioeconomic farmers and artisans––not the sons of gentry–– who overwhelming fought and died for the cause.

As an immigrant who identifies with a host of US ideals, and as a Greek American educator who embraces the historiographical approach that The American Revolution applies, I find a sense of refreshing recognition in the documentary’s manner of telling the story. It narrates the past, well, historically.

At the same time, I feel overwhelming dismay. As a researcher who closely follows the prevailing Greek American tellings of its history and identity, I compare them with the mode of narrating history and identity in the documentary. The juxtaposition is dispiriting. In contrast to the American telling, prevailing Greek American narratives tend to idealize the group’s past and homogenize its present. Greek America emphasizes its sharing with American ideals. But in this case, it falls short, its popular narrations about its past are ahistorical.

It is the "Other Greek America" which has been responsible to that history, historicizing it. The other in Greek America deserves relocation as a central place - a direction to which the forthcoming Ergon initiative contributes.

Stay tuned

pbs.org

The American Revolution

A review of Koraly Dimitriadis' "The Mother must Die"

A required diasporic reading

A must read review by Dean Kalymniou

"What makes 'The Mother Must Die 'especially unsettling is its dismantling of the very category of “Greekness.” Dimitriadis refuses a monolithic interpretation. She allows the cracks in the façade to show. Some characters whose heritage claims “mainland Greece” speak with Cypriot inflections. Others who are Cypriot occupy a liminal space: neither wholly integrated into the mythic “Greekness” that the mother guards, nor comfortable in assimilation. That displacement reveals that “being Greek” is not an essence but a contested construction. Language shifts, dialects merge, identity becomes layered. In the diaspora, Greekness becomes something inherited conditional on compliance, cultural performance and silence. That conditionality is often forgotten in public mythology. Dimitriadis refuses the forgetting. She inserts confusion, friction and hybridity, allowing identity to fold in on itself, to fracture, to reassemble. In doing so she manifests a sense of belonging can be claimed, declined, modified, or rejected. It becomes unstable and alive."

December 7, 2025

Speaking globally, navigating diasporic worlds...

One thought is sinking as I continue processing this important lecture (Christos Tsiolkas's the 2025 Ray Mathew Lecture at the National Library of Australia).

For those of us who try to understand individuals navigating two cultures and inevitably cultural borders––individuals we often call diasporic––the talk directs us to this line of inquiry: what is it that a diasporic intellectual such as Christos Tsiolkas tells Australian audiences, Greek Australians and beyond, English-speaking audiences everywhere? What points does he convey when addressing fiction writers, scholars, cultural producers of all sorts, citizens? Scholars of decolonization, people inhabiting art worlds? And in turn, as the lecture underlines, how is it that immigrant family history, growing up in an immigrant household, might shape the point one in the next generation communicates to global audiences?

The talk is a reminder of how limited the approach is to diasporic subjectivities when we seek to measure degrees of ethnic identity or national loyalties. Or when one seeks to nationalize them. Something bigger is at stake that resists easy answers, convenient categories. It opens the field of reflective citizenship, which requires serious labor for exploration; patience, acquiring knowledge. Asking fresh questions, charting the two fields next to the bicultural border, reflecting on their crossings. Hence the importance of anyone who seeks to understand diasporic issues to navigate learning two cultures, two realities. In sort enter deep into diasporic studies and beyond.

Yiorgos Anagnostou

December 4, 2025

Ergon Publications (January 1 – December 1, 2025)

Multigenre diasporic material for reading: archival pieces, articles, bibliographies, blogs, book reviews, editorials, essays, interviews, memoirs, poetry, poetry reviews, review essays

Available online, free access!

Australian, Canadian, US material – support us! (https://ergon.scienzine.com/page/donations)

With many thanks to the book review, poetry and music editors, Neovi Karakatsanis, Christopher Bakken, Yona Stamatis – the unsung heroines and heroes! We welcome aboard Joanna Eleftheriou!

Archive Building

Leontis, Artemis. 1998. “A Greek-American Sense of Place.” MGSA Bulletin. Modern Greek Studies Association. John O. Iatrides, ed. Vol. XXX No. 2 (Fall): 58–61. January 10. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../a-greek-american-sense-of...

Keywords: Travels to Greece; Traveler’s Memoir; “Diaspora Visiting Greece: Making Home”; Greek-American Sense of Place; Artemis Leontis.

Christian McEwen. 2000. “Olga Broumas’s Body Language.” Greece In Print: A Magazine of Greek Literature and Culture. The Hellenic Literature Society’s Literary Review. No. 140 (January): 19–20, 32. January 11. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../olga-broumas-body-language

Keywords: Greek American Poetry; Olga Broumas; Greek American Literary Magazines.

Παλαιολόγος, Παύλος. 1972. «Οι Έλληνες Έξω από την Ελλάδα: Ορθοδοξία και Γένος». Μπίρης. January 24. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../oi-ellines-exo-apo-tin...

Keywords: Ethnoreligious Nationalism; US Greek Orthodoxy as Spiritual and Cultural Center; The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s Clergy–Laity Congress (New York City, 1970) and Internal Conflicts over Identity; Language Loss; Folk Dances and Identity; Greek Journalists & Authors Visiting Greek America.

Karanikas, Alexander. 2002. “A Bouquet of Praise for Helen Papanikolas.” Greece In Print: A Journal of Greek Literature and Culture. The Hellenic Literature Society’s Literary Review. No. 170/171 (July/August): 13–14. January 27. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../archive.../helen-papanikolas

Keywords: Greek American History; Helen Papanikolas; “An Amulet of Greek Earth”; Alexander Karanikas; Greek American Literary Magazines.

Articles

Nicholas Ezra Field. 2025. “Romancing Greek History: Sophocles Papas and the Cosmopolitan Classicization of American Music.” October 3. https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/music/sophocles-papas

Bibliographies

Angeliki Tsiotinou, 2025. “Bibliography on Greek America (2024).” [with extensive references to Greece’s Strategic Plan for the Diaspora / Στρατηγικό Σχέδιο του ΥΠΕΞ για τον Απόδημο Ελληνισμό]. April 17.

https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../bibliography-on-greek...

Blogs

Alexandros Balasis. 2025. “Mapping Greek Businesses in Toronto, 1910s to 1960s:

A Digital Humanities Project.” March 16. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../mapping-greek-businesses...

Gregory Jusdanis. 2025. “The Anarchist and the Saint.” [Profiles of Ludlow.] July 20. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../the-anarchist-and-the-saint

Yiorgos Anagnostou. 2025. “Diasporic Presences, Pedagogical Prospects: Toward a Transnational Greek Language Classroom.” November 8. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../diasporic-presences...

Book Reviews

David M. K. Sheinin. 2025. Review of Steven Johnson, Jim Londos: The Golden Greek of Professional Wrestling. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2025. February 6. https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/books/jim-londos

Yiorgos D. Kalogeras. 2025. Review of Konstantinos Dioyos, The Greek Vision for the United States of America: From the Greek Revolution to World War I. [Κωνσταντίνος Διώγος, «Το όραμα των Ελλήνων για τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες της Αμερικής. Από την Ελληνική Επανάσταση έως τον Α΄ Παγκόσμιο πόλεμο».] Athens: Alexandria, 2024. June 8. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../from-the-greek-revolution...

Αργύριος Σακοράφας. 2025. Review of Νίκη Τρουλλινού, Διασχίζοντας τον ωκεανό / Crossing the Ocean. Μετάφραση Eleni Hall Manolaraki. Χανιά: Πυξίδα της Πόλης, 2025. Νοέμβριος 19. https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/books/crossing-the-ocean

Editorials

Yiorgos Anagnostou. 2025. «Ιστορικές υποχωρήσεις και αποχωρήσεις: Πολιτικά κάλαντα από τη διασπορά». January 1. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../politika-kalanta-apo-ti...

Essays

Zeese Papanikolas. 2025. “The Grandfather I Never Knew: An Excerpt from a Family Memoir.” March 8. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../the-grandfather-i-never-knew

Interviews

“Kalliope X: Positions, Poetics, Politics of Difference”––An Interview with Dimitris Troaditis, George Mouratidis, and Angela Costi. Interview by Yiorgos Anagnostou. January 25.

https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/interviews/kalliope-x

“Conversations with Dan Georgakas.” (An interview series with Alexander Kitroeff and Yiorgos Anagnostou). “Introduction.” February 14. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../conversations-with-dan...

“Conversations with Dan Georgakas.” Topic: Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora. Interview by Yiorgos Anagnostou. March 3. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../journal-of-the-hellenic...

Poetry

Luisa Muradyan. 2025. “Four Poems.” February 25. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../four-poems-luisa-muradyan

George Kalogeris. 2025. “Seven Poems.” March 15. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../george-kalogeris-seven-poems

Liana Sakelliou. 2025. “Three poems.” June 12. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../tra.../sakelliou-three-poems

Helen Koukoutsis. 2025. “Two Poems.” August 6. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../two-poems-helen-koukoutsis

George Kalamaras. 2025. “Three Poems.” August 8. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../three-poems-george-kalamaras

David Mason. 2025. “Three Poems and Two Translations.” October 23. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../three-poems-and-two...

Review Essays

Yiorgos Anagnostou. 2025. “The Past, Present, Future: Voicing Greek Australian Dreaming.” Review essay of Helen Vatsikopoulos ed., Hellenic Dreaming. The Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales, 2024. April 5. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../voicing-greek-australian...

Konstantinos Diogos. 2025. Review essay of Andrew E. Manatos, The Extraordinary Greek People: Their Remarkable Achievements and Philosophy for Living from Ancient Times to Today. Traverse City, MI: Mission Point Press. 2022. April 14. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../the-extraordinary-greek...

Anastasia Christou. 2025. “Community, Care and Country: Conversations with Two Volumes of the Hellenism in the Heartland Series.” Review essay of (1) John P. Psiharis, Working to Preserve Our Heritage: The Incredible Legacy of Greek-American Community Services (Hellenism in the Heartland). Volume 1 of Series. Chicago: Greek American Press, 2023. And (2) John P. Psiharis, Breaking Ground: The Inside Story of Chicago’s Greek Nursing Home Movement (Hellenism in the Heartland). Volume 2 of Series. Chicago: Greek American Press, 2024. April 26. https://ergon.scienzine.com/.../community-care-and-country

Poetry Reviews

Adrianne Kalfopoulou. 2025. Review of Catherine Strisik, Goat, Goddess, Moon. Holy Cow! Press. 2025. October 19. https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/books/goat-goddess-moon