Greek Critical Inattention – The facts

Καλοτάξιδο! "A great journey" is how people in Greece wish a book well on the occasion of its publication. The wish recognizes the unpredictability surrounding the life of a newly published book.

The other day i received news that a Greek academic journal will be publishing a review of the 2021 Greek translation of my book "Contours of White Ethnicity: Popular Ethnography and the Making of Usable Pasts in Greek America" (2009).

It will be the first of its kind in Greece four years after its publication. Welcoming news!

Contous, i must say, had an uneven and curious journey.

It was accorded wide ranging attention and discussed broadly in several academic fields in the United States. It was reviewed by distinguished scholars in American whiteness, popular culture & folklore, and Italian American studies among others (see here). It is widely cited in the US, Canada, Europe, Greece, and Australia, gratifyingly by new generation scholars.

To βιβλίο συζήτηθηκε πολύπλευρα και κριτικά, όπως πρέπει για κάθε βιβλίο, αποκομίσαμε όλοι θέλω να πιστεύω, και σίγουρα εγώ προσωπικά, πολλαπλά οφέλη.

In contrast, its Greek translation (Nisos, Translation Pelagia Marketou) was utterly ignored (until now) by Greece or Europe-based scholars. (and not because of lack of publicity.)

Similarly, journals in Britain and (two) US Greek American journals (!) showed no interest in reviewing it.

[The original was reviewed in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies and the Athens Review of Books (Penelope Papailias). The translation was discussed in TO VHMA (Maria Kaliambou).]

Two national academic landscapes
Two dramatically different receptions...

Beyond Greek America as Village

Even a casual observer of Greek American self-representations cannot miss the persistent desire to define the group along three basic attributes:

(a) biological bonds (ancestry) and traditional ties

(b) uniformity

(c) timelessness

The narrative celebrates all three. It exalts the culture of the village since Greek independence and yearns to establish it as an attractive cultural template for Greek America today.

A 2025 editorial in The National Herald, entitled “Dancing with Yiayia and Pappou,” asserts this yearning passionately:

There could be no more clear-cut definition of Greek America as a U.S. Greek village. Drawing the boundaries of the group along the core criteria of ancestry and tradition, sharedness, and timelessness, it projects an ethnic future solely based on the past.

Greek villages were notorious for safeguarding their core values through mechanisms of shaming, punishing, or ostracizing those who dissented. The new was feared as a challenge to the status quo and had to be neutralized. It is not surprising then that the rendition of Greek America as ethnic village renders invisible those who represent alternative visions.

Some demographics which the village model excludes are the following:

• There is those with no Greek ancestry who cultivate serious Greek learning. They read and write about Greece (and Greek America), speak the language fluently, produce music, write poetry, do research, translate its writers and poets, value Greek modernity, and often teach it. The conventional meaning of “Philhellene” does not do justice to these persons who are immersed in Greek American institutional and social worlds which they shape. Sometimes they are married or in intimate partnerships with Greek people. They identify or feel Greek not through “blood” or customs, but engagement with Greek American modernity.

• The fact of course is that Greek America is immensely heterogeneous. There are those who identify as Greek without speaking the language. Not all Greek Americans practice Greek Orthodoxy. A sector keeps a distance from tradition––some are not seduced by folk dancing and customs. Others feel alienated as they have been subjected to the oppression and traumas that the US Greek village culture has inflicted on countless women and men, feminists, progressives, mavericks, intellectuals, non-heteronormative sexual identities. A deep resentment against immigrant patriarchy still persists.

• Instead of finding meaning in the confines of the ethnic village, a diverse Greek American demographic connects with Greek worlds via modernity––literature, the arts, books. Individuals participate and support networks of contemporary Greek American cultural expressions––film festivals, lectures on the immigrant working class, journals, art exhibits. The so-called timelessness of tradition (its meanings, expressions, and purposes change) feels inadequate in their desires to function as agents in participating and contributing toward new Greek American expressions of civic relevance.

Obviously, the nostalgic longing for Greek America as a cultural and temporal capsule functions as a mechanism of exclusion. But its implications go deeper. Finding solace to the reproduction of a narrow cultural core, it refrains from engaging with educational initiatives and cultural policy to address Greek America’s increasing heterogeneity. Its centripetal orientation reverts to "sameness," having nothing to say about new and emerging realities.

In contrast, individuals across the demographics I outlined above envision a dynamic Greek America of cultural becoming. We call this diverse field the Other Greek America. Theirs is a centripetal model which, alas, is sidelined by major institutions and centers of power.

We owe it to the richness of Greek America to render the Other Greek America visible. For the last five years or so, the online, open access journal Ergon: Greek American &Diaspora Arts and Letters has been taking several steps toward this direction. (1)

We will be expanding this project next by featuring perspectives which articulate the contours of Greek America beyond the controls of the ethnic village.

The project is entitled Voices of the Other Greek America.

Stay tuned. It commences on January 1, 2026.

Yiorgos Anagnostou

Note

1. On heterogeneity, alternative visions, policy, and resistance to narrow definitions of Greek America see:

• “The Other Greek America—Editorial.” Ergon: Greek/American & Diaspora Arts and Letters. March 11, 2023. (https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/editorials/the-other-greek-america)

• “Greek America’s Diversity, After the Fact: What Comes Next?” Erγon: Greek/American Arts and Letters. August 29, 2022. (https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/essays/greek-americas-diversity)

• “A Paradigm Award, A Paradigm for Greek/American Cultural Policy.” Erγon: Greek/American Arts and Letters. August 3, 2021. (https://ergon.scienzine.com/article/essays/greek-american-cultural-policy)

• “Greek American Youth: Multiplying Routes to Hellenism as Cultural Policy.” American Journal of Contemporary Hellenic Issues, 11 (Spring), 1–7, 2020.

A minute diasporic moment stretching to eternity and a reflection on bilingualism

There was a moment during a talk I recently gave in Astoria––a talk in Greek––when I veered off the script to only encounter a deep linguistic void that would draw me into its vortex, the kind many diasporic people would recognize (and a situation thay would empathize with). I could not come up with the word I needed to say, neither in Greek nor in English.

The legendary cultural reference to this situation has been gloriously captured in the film «Η Θεία από την Αμερική»:

«είμαστε βερι βερι..πως το λέτε εσείς εδώ, γιατί ξεχνάω πώς το λέμε εμείς εκεί, βερι χολοσκασμένες, καμ πληζ πληζ...».

Ι have no sense of how the audience––visitors from Greece and Greek Americans––each received this slip. But in retrospect, in the sound of thundering silence or perhaps awkward mumbling (I cannot remember which) it generated, it inadvertently made the point which was at the core of my talk: extend a call to the research community to explore the diasporic experience in the United States in itself, its histories, biculturalism and bilingualism.

In my case, such an exploration would have revealed a forty-year struggle with two languages, or more accurately two languages in four registers: vernacular English, theoretical English in the humanities, vernacular Greek, theoretical Greek in the humanities.

When I arrived in the United States, I had no grasp whatsoever of the theoretical register of either language (I could handle ok the language of civil engineering in Greek due to my degree on the subject); and only rudimentary skills in vernacular English. The journey of gains and losses while traversing this terrain of deep fault lines has shaped me profoundly––whatever was achieved was with blood, sweat, and tears.

From this angle, the moment of my slippage has nothing to do with failure or embarrassment, but with the revealing of the space where this struggle poignantly announces itself. The fact that it took me perhaps twice as much time to compose the talk in Greek that would have taken a native Greek speaker (and if it were in English, that it would have taken me twice the time than a native English speaker)…

This brings me to a pedagogical, epistemological, and critical issue, exploring the linguistic experiences of the second, the third, and the fourth generation.

Instead of preaching to them about the benefits of learning Greek, we will do good to closely attend to their own feelings, ambivalences, pleasures, hesitations, aspirations, and yes, silences connected with their own bilingual spaces (different age groups will require different strategies in this inquiry). This is to say to cultivate the practice, sensitively and skillfully, of the anthropologist entering into a dialogue with others leading to intersubjective understanding. This is a time and energy consuming approach requiring a great deal of resources. But if we are serious about building/preserving a linguistic community we cannot possibly rely on top-down standardized templates and ideologies removed from the every day realities of the students. The stream of our pedagogies and policies should navigate the linguistic journey through our deep understanding of the youngsters.

Yiorgos Anagnostou
November 11, 2025

Οι δικοί μας, οι άλλοι, η Χενιτιά

Ο πόνος και η αγωνία των ανθρώπων του τόπου μας που ξενιτεύτηκαν τότε.

Ο πόνος και η αγωνία των ξενιτεμένων από αλλού που έρχονται στον τόπο μας τώρα.

Το αφήγημα για το πρώτο θέμα συνεχίζει να απολαμβάνει ευρεία αποδοχή (αν αναπαράγει κοινούς τόπους και δεν θίγει επίμαχα θέματα). Θα επιβραβευόταν και ίσως βραβευόταν.

Φαντάζομαι ένα αφήγημα (μυθιστόρημα, διήγημα, τραγούδι) που θα έθετε σε συνομιλία το «εμείς τότε» κα οι «άλλοι τώρα» σε έναν ιστορικό διάλογο. Μέσω από μια ανθρωπιστική και συνάμα πολιτική ματιά.

Ποια θα ήταν η πρόσληψη μια τέτοιας απόδοσης στην τοπική κοινωνία, στη χώρα, στην διασπορά;

Για αρκετούς από εμάς εδώ στην Αμερική που έχουμε δεχθεί υποστήριξη από άλλους -κάποιες φορές στιγματισμένους- είναι αδύνατον να αφηγηθούμε την εμπειρία της ξενιτιάς χωρίς να αναγνωρίσουμε τους άλλους που θεωρούμε πλέον δικούς μας.

The surging interest in language preservation in the diasporas: The emerging landscape and the stakes involved

 

The local preservation of the Greek language at a global level has been elevated as a major political project supported by powerful institutions (the Greek state, the Greek Orthodox Church), communities, and universities. As a result, the interest in the “diaspora” or “omogeneia” (a misplaced term) intensifies among scholars working on the teaching of Greek as heritage language. This is a great development.

In this unfolding landscape, one observes several intersections as scholars working for years on diasporic education, sometimes in collaboration with colleagues in Greece, are joined by a new cohort of academics. The urgency to preserve the language is cast as of outmost importance in the service of Hellenism.

It is of interest to start reflecting on the various recent and forthcoming initiatives toward this purpose. In this relatively early stage, as a new cohort of colleagues enters the terrain, it is important to recognize that there is not a single but a variety of HellenismS. For those who follow the conversation, two paradigms, the so-called Helladic Hellenism and Diasporic Hellenism, represent two incommensurable narratives in understanding diasporic identity (work on this is forthcoming, but if you are interested there is an article on this topic by Dimitris Tziovas).

What we have seen recently in this process is two contradictory approaches.

First, there are meticulous studies attuned to diasporic realities; they attend to the ethical and political implications of bringing these realties into representation. One of their interests is to foreground diasporic understanding of Greek identities––not impose from above grand narratives. Diasporas are not exclusively framed in relation to Greece, but as historically and culturally specific negotiations with bilingualism and biculturalism in the new homeland. There is pedagogical interest in the intersection the cultural and civic dimensions that enter into the making of responsible diasporic ctitizens.

In contrast, one observes in the discourse a (renewed) embracing of ahistorical version of Hellenism––diaspora as Greece outside the borders; the Greek spirit; the metaphor of Greek immigrants as migratory birds; simplified renderings of diasporic connections with Greece––by academics; directly, or indirectly. This consent is rewarded in multiple ways by institutions promoting this ideology.

Form the point of view of scholars historicizing immigrant and diasporic expressions this is highly problematic. Frankly, disturbing. The “diaspora” of this ahistorical narrative into diasporic spaces obliterates their complexity, αποτελεί συμμόρφωση σε μια αντιεπιστημονική προσέγγιση.

For over two decades, our (necessary) interrogation of ahistorical narratives of diasporic identities has absorbed valuable energies, diverting us from creative projects. It is time to move forward based on the ethics of serious scholarship and the consciousness of what is at stake in its practice.

Yiorgos Anagnostou

13 November, 2025

The 2025 Gabby Awards – “Goddesses in our Mist”: Constructing class, cultural and gender identity in Greek America

[tentative thoughts on the announcement of The 2025 Gabby Awards – “Goddesses in our Mist” (June, NYC)]

Written with multiple audiences in mind, including of course researchers working on the question of gender, class, and ethnic intersectionality

I read about the upcoming 2025 Gabby Awards. This year the event centers on the “telling [of] a fascinating story of Goddesses in our Midst and recognizing a pantheon of 20 dynamic women from throughout North America our very own modern day goddesses who strive for excellence in all they do and work tirelessly to make the world around them a better place. We are telling a story of 20 ordinary women whose impact is EXTRAORDINARY.”

https://greekamerica.org/gabbyawards2025/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNc8RpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHlW7ZhAErezFH6v_C3aaN6dkhqtWI42szZZXwgbSTJSrVqlTzm3ocw7csOgJ_aem_NGtzM1U2Vfly6SUARqtXiA

This is a black-tie event, the general individuals ticket costing $1,000. There are several titles of sponsors ranging from between the highest 250,000 (the Title Sponsor [one left]) to the lowest 5,000 (Bronze Sponsor). I have listened to speeches from past events celebrating a range of inclusions. But this caters exclusively to the Greek American professional middle/upper middle class and those who afford to aspire to belong to it.

 
I (re)read the values guiding the sponsoring organization of this event, the Greek America Foundation: its “firm mission [is] to emphasize ideals such as philanthropy, the pursuit of excellence and innovation — all core components of the Greek existence.” The now ubiquitous philotimo is also highlighted.

I recall the narrative that equates philotimo with the “Greeks doing the right thing” in history. The right thing for this class of Greek Americans is charity, philanthropy, the pursuit of excellence, philanthropy toward vulnerable populations in Greece.

 
What is this event all about? At the most basic level, certainly, the identity construction of a group around shared ideals. It brings together class (middle/upper middle), cultural identity, gender. An example of intersectionality, an academic would put it.

My thinking veers to certain Greek American realities––more accurately issues––that the introduction to this Gala refrains from addressing.

Soaring real estate prices hurting working class and lower-middle class Greek Americans, particularly in New York City where the gala takes place. (and benefitting multiple home owners and those in the real estate business.)

Intra-ethnic divisions along US political affiliation. I assume that the attendees represent a wide spectrum of party affiliations. Do they understand philotimo and philoxenia and doing the right thing in the same manner? An educated guess is they do not. What does making “the world a better place” mean for the various attendees? What is the price paid for this kind of construed unity?

 
I think of intra-ethnic exploitation, newly arriving immigrants in need being vulnerable to it. Also, of class-arrogance among nouveau rich Greek Americans toward their poorer relatives in the Bay Area, all well documented. Real practices do not correspond to the touted ideals.

As I noted, in the advertisement of the event we witness the normative construction of ethnicity/diaspora as shared ideals. At the same time, the narrative refrains from connecting the ideals it celebrates with real problems confronting sectors of Greek America. The event refrains from taking positions and working toward systemic solutions.

 
As it is often noted, to gain acceptance and appeal to members of the assimilated middle-class, ethnicity is depoliticized, hiding its internal tensions and conflicts, refraining from acknowledging socioeconomic hierarchies which charity might somewhat (and temporarily) alleviate but cannot (or is unwilling to) solve.
Reproducing dominant values (philanthropy, socioeconomic success, innovation, creativity, resilience, entrepreneurship self-determination) couched in cultural terms, ethnicity becomes yet another building block of assimilation, this time into middle-class interests which seeks to secure.

But an important step is due: probe carefully the cultural work of the honorees and explore what kind of nuances and complexities might bring to both the idealizations of the event and this initial commentary.

Yiorgos Anagnostou

May 8, 2025

The Production of Greek American Heritage

It was in the early 2000s when Steve Frangos gave a name to the then intensifying cultural phenomenon of grass roots activism to preserve community history and heritage. He called it “a new preservation movement.”

Since that time this activism has been burgeoning, the question of preservation propels all kinds of projects: production of oral histories and documents (production and not collection because the knowledge one gets about the past depends on who is interviewed, the questions asked, or the archives researched). There have been documentaries, workshops, the writing of histories.

The question of preservation inevitably raises an array of sub-questions: who decides what merits preservation? What heritages have been historically neglected or even censored? Why is it that some major projects to create a Greek American archive have not been supported by national organizations which celebrate heritage? Why some of our institutions with the stated mission to produce historical memory have been notoriously selective in their curation?

With the exception of a few scattered accounts, I have not seen a serious national discussion on these issues.

Preservation projects often attach value to their work by asking how the pasts they produce help answer the (identity) question “who we are”––which obviously can only be answered in the plural form. We cannot genuinely explore this question without openly engaging with the sub-questions I indicate above. Who are we when we routinely celebrate heritage but lack a substantive national policy and the allocation of funds for its (inclusive) research, documentation, analysis, and broad dissemination?

These were my thoughts a few nights ago while listening to the interview Meletios Poulopoulos, founder of the Greek Cultural Resources (https://greekculturalresources.org/index.html), gave for the Oral History Archives of the Hellenic American Project at Queens College, CUNY. Let us really listen to what Meletios is telling us (https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1182953000332084&set=a.135519291742132). It should serve as the starting point for a broader conversation, action, and policy.

Yiorgos Anagnostou

September 25, 2025

Greek Diasporas: Cultural Activism and Self-reflection

An idea has been hovering in Greek America, Greek Australia, and Greek Canada: it is time for Greek diasporas to start speaking with each other, comparing experiences, similarities, and differences.

It is a beneficial conversation. It will focus on the issues the diasporas confront and deliberate, and contribute to self-understanding.

Why compare Greek diasporas?

The prevailing narrative largely views the “diaspora” exclusively with Greece as the hub, neglecting for the most part these issues. We need a comparative project focused on us.

Comparing diasporas presents vast challenges. Each diaspora (Greek Australia, Greek Canada) is internally diverse. It is one thing to grow up middle-class Greek in multiethnic Los Angeles and working-class in the close-knit ethnic communities in the largely homogeneous rural Ohio. Greeks in the province of Quebec, where the official language is French, negotiate their identity differently than those in the Anglophone province of Ontario. What is more, each diaspora is shaped by the ever-changing political, economic and ideological forces of its home society (say “white Australia policy” vs multicultural Australia).

Each diaspora, therefore, is a heterogeneous and dynamic phenomenon–not a monolithic entity; it needs understanding in specific contexts and the study of scattered archives. The comparative project is time-consuming and requires considerable human and material resources.

One way to tackle this complexity is to center research around a particular topic: language preservation, for example, which generates a great deal of interest; or histories of working-class experiences, relatively neglected today.

The limits of Greek America’s approach

The question I wish to focus on in this writing is most vocally expressed in Greek Australia and Greek Canada, and with less intensity in Greek America. It involves reflection on three interrelated issues. First, how does the community support learning of a diaspora’s multifaceted history and culture; second, how to promote creative expressions–via various media–of the diasporic and immigrant experience; and third, how to sustain a rigorous public sphere which disseminates and deliberates on the significance of this cultural output.

I call the interest in advocating these practices “diaspora cultural activism.”

In this conversation, I note that this cultural activism is not at the centre of Greek America’s priorities, a puzzling situation given the emphasis on paideia as a core value of its identity. I sketch a tentative answer with the following comparative aim in mind: How does cultural activism in Greek Canada and Greek Australia provide a model for those advocating it in Greek America?

Each diaspora, therefore, is a heterogeneous and dynamic phenomenon–not a monolithic entity; it needs understanding in specific contexts and the study of scattered archives.

I focus here on those conditions that have historically compromised Greek America’s commitment to genuine self-exploration. I identify four historical and cultural forces that have compromised this development.

Politics of pride and identity

To start with we have the cultural politics of ethnic pride. Like many European American groups, Greek America entered US multiculturalism via a celebratory narrative of socioeconomic success, pride in heritage and culture. Its self-representations tout the group as ethnoreligious and family-oriented. They aspire to be seen as model ethnics who have fulfilled the prevailing American ideology of bootstrap mobility.

Projecting this positive image matters more than acknowledging the actual social experience. Experiences such as intra-ethnic exploitation, ethnocentrism, significant support for the junta (by a group priding itself as the cradle of democratic principles), illegalities, consent of some demographics to racist segregation, interfered with the good name of the group. They were therefore excluded from public narratives. A commitment to historical understanding and recognition of its internal plurality was sacrificed in exchange for an idealised public image as a source of prestige to the group.

Second, at play is the institutional marginalisation of Greek American studies. Though Greek America supported academic modern Greek Programs, the major mandate was the teaching of Greek language and modern Greek culture, not Greek American studies. A critical mass of scholars was drawn to the study of Greek Nobel prize poets and internationally celebrated writers rather than the immigrant experience. Greek American learning was sidelined in the academy in general and was marginalised in Modern Greek Studies programs. Diasporic self-understanding and the recognition of Greek American arts suffered major setbacks.

Third, in America, the ethnoreligious model of community organisation dominates, contrasting with the strong presence of secular communities in Greek Australia and Greek Canada. In conjunction with what sociologist Charles Moskos calls the Greek American conservative ethos–– with “even a trace of anti-intellectualism”–– the ethnoreligious community was hostile to experimental arts, expression of non-normative identities (LGBTQ), and new ideas in activism for social change (feminism, for example), among other initiatives. Denied a nurturing environment, Greek American artists and intellectuals turned their backs on the community as intellectual participants. A tradition of critical reflection never took root within the parishes.

Last but not least, Greek American intellectuals and artists have been an exiled minority. The normative emphasis on college education as the means for social mobility weakened Greek Americans in the arts, the humanities and the social sciences. Community conservatism displayed no patience with critical ideas and ideals. During the post-1960s immigration wave, there was no robust labour movement to nourish social critique. Some thinkers persisted, writing about neglected aspects of the immigrant experience, promoting Greek American learning in journals they created, while others, tired, turned into silence or left the country.

For all these reasons, Greek America has largely compromised its commitment to critical self-understanding, recognition of its multiplicity, and critical historical learning. It operates as an insecure minority that opts for positive caricaturing, denying its contradictions, faults, and innovative ideas, ultimately its human complexity.

Lessons from Australia and Canada

But an alternative paradigm has been emerging in Greek Canada and Australia. Communities advocate historical and cultural self-understanding, promoting this project via partnerships with universities. They fund the making of professional diaspora archives and their research. In the spirit of cultural democracy, books feature the internal diversity of the group, including stories previously taboo for families and communities. Diaspora artists are invited to present their work in community fora. Secular communities feature public talks about civic issues at the home society. Educators encourage high school children to craft their stories about growing up Greek Australian. Perhaps opening up school curricula to diaspora material is the next step, if this is not already happening?

Community leaders are aware of course, that historical education will produce knowledge which might be unflattering to the group. But their support takes a vital step toward liberating the diaspora from the tyranny of the model ethnic ethos of self-censorship. It puts in practice the ideals of paideia and democratic inclusion.

In this paradigm, we witness a radical redefinition of success, prestige, and pride. The reputation of diaspora Greeks is not based on sugarcoated images but actual civic and cultural contributions. Learning about the experiences of a group is also learning about the home society. Cultural activism in the diaspora enriches the literary, cultural and historical fabric of both the group and the home nation. Pride rests not on cultural myths but creative participation.

Cultural activism in practice

In Greek America’s effort to empower cultural activism, Greek Australia and Greek Canada offer valuable examples. This is not as straightforward as it might appear. The political landscapes and modes of multiculturalism in Australia, Canada, and the United States vary. The conditions for cultural activism in each diaspora are different. But if we are true to our ideals, the cause is worth fighting even in the most adverse of circumstances. Cultural activism is a work in progress, requiring considerable human and material resources as well as the fearless political will of leaders and institutions.

Note: This piece was published in the Greek Australian newspaper Neos Kosmos, August 16, 2025

Yiorgos Anagnostou 

On the question of Global Hellenisms and "a metropolitan center"

Thinking about Modern Greek Programs and academic units in Australia, Canada, France, Greece, UK and US among others being at the forefront of knowledge production about the Greek diasporas

Thinking of artists, authors, poets, translators connected with Greek heritage or culture and living outside Greece earning distinction for their work across the world

These plain facts obviously de-center the notion of Greece as the metropolitan center of "global Hellenism"

Modern Greek studies, it follows, are implicated in transnational networks and constellations beyond Greece as its center.

07/23/2025

Reflections on a Greek American Bibliography

I recently read with interest the entries under the section “The Greek Diaspora and Greek Emigration: Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United States,” in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Greek History. It was good to see the topic of migration and diaspora included in this volume and prestigious venue, even in a separate unit and this comparative modality.

Crafting an entry in the genre of handbooks is no small task. Authors are called to meander through a longue durée of time and somehow manage to do justice to multifaced historical trajectories. A century and more of history in some of our cases in less than 2,000 words. Achieving this representation requires a bird’s eye view of history, the power relations traversing through it, and intimate knowledge of its specifics to draw a meaningful survey bringing in conversation the general and the particular, the canonical and the unorthodox, the conventional and the innovative.

 
While reading “The Greek Diaspora and Greek Emigration” there were moments when I marveled at the authors’ dexterity to negotiate the challenges of the genre.

I was surprised though by the range of the bibliography and the scope of the recommended “further readings” of the Greek American entry. It cites several standard resources from conventional Greek American historiography (Theodore Saloutos, Charles Moskos,) but leaves out a host of publications which have been advancing the field since the 1990s toward previously uncharted research domains.

Going over the list, several missing scholarly contributions cascaded through my mind. They are books which

(a) were published by prestigious US University Presses

(b) opened new conceptual spaces, advancing the field in conversation with theories of diaspora, migration, subjectivity

(c) have been widely discussed by US diaspora and migration scholars

(d) have been extensively cited by prominent scholars and the next generation of researchers

(e) offer examples of powerfully written, sophisticated and innovative analyses of new research domains

There is also major articles or book chapters carving new directions for the field.

Those of us who know the field we automatically recognize these omissions. It is puzzling. But one of the major sources of power associated with this genre is to orient contemporary (and future) readers who are not familiar with the histories, debates, contributions of this field. It involves a gesture of power toward the making of a canon.

A comprehensive bibliography is of course not possible in this case due to the limitations of the genre. But the task (in fact the responsibility) is to come up with a more expansive pool of resources than the one offered here. To foreground the polyvocality of the field and its multifaceted directions.

I see that the volume is in Progress. I hope that the editors will take the step to rectify this one problematic aspect of the contribution.

 
https://academic.oup.com/.../chapter-abstract/523978577...

Yiorgos Anagnostou

July 11