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
No comments:
Post a Comment