The Greek American Studies Resource Portal – Fall 2013
Anthropology
and Cultural Studies
c)
Reviews
Tricarico, Donald, Robert Viscusi, Phylis
Cancilla Martinelli; Yiorgos Anagnostou reply. Roundtable review of “Contours
of White Ethnicity: Popular Ethnography and the Making of Usable Pasts in Greek
America,” by Yiorgos Anagnostou. Italian
American Review 3.1 (2013): 52-61.
Autobiographies
– Memoirs – Biography
George, Harris. By George. Baltimore: BrickHouse Books, 2005.
The author writes about his childhood
in the Greek community of Baltimore, his Navy years, and the challenges of
practicing law. He says, “I’ve tried to capture my fondest memories of a happy
life punctuated by special people and amusing predicaments in which I found
myself.”
Rassogianis, Alexander. Return
to Glenlord: Memories of Michigan Summers. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2013.
With humor, the author
captures adventures with family and friends in Stevensville, Michigan during the
1950s. He describes being part of the vibrant and loving Greek community that
journeyed from Chicago to spend their summers in this area of old-fashioned
resorts, quaint cottage and sandy beaches. Included are vintage photos.
Savas, Georgianna. Eyes on Stamos: A Sister's Memoir – A Brother's
Wishes. Georgianna Savas, 2005.
The author writes about her brother, the Greek American artist, Theodoros
Stamos.
Strongylis, Cleopas. Dean James A. Coucouzes as a Model of Priesthood. Archbishop Iakovos’ Ministry at the
Annunciation Cathedral of New England (1942-1954). Brookline, MA: Holy
Cross Orthodox Press, 2012.
Blogs
and Resource Portals
a)
Blogs
Bouikidis, Aphrodite. “Leading the Greek
American Community Towards Global Change.” Huffington
Post. 27 July 2012.
Souvaliotis, Adreas. “How I Became a
Successful Misfit.” Huffington Post.
24 Sept. 2013
Dissertations
and Theses
Morrow, Eric V. Transnational Religion in Greek
American Political Advocacy.
Diss. Baylor University, 2012.
Documentary
a)
Documentaries
Booth, Clark. Agganis: The Golden Greek – Excellence to the End. WGBH
Documentary. Boston, 2013.
Kαρπόζηλος, Κωστής και Κώστας Βάκκας. [Karpozilos, Kostis and
Kostas Vakkas]. Ταξισυνειδησία – Η
Άγνωστη Ιστορία του Ελληνοαμερικανικού Ριζοσπασμού. [Greek-American
Radicals: the Untold Story]. Idea Films, 2013.
H άγνωστη ιστορία
του ελληνοαμερικανικού ριζοσπαστισμού από την εποχή της μαζικής μετανάστευσης
στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες έως τα χρόνια του Μακαρθισμού σε ένα ντοκιμαντέρ. Μία
ιστορία συλλογικών αγώνων, ριζοσπαστικών ιδεών, συναρπαστικών διαδρομών και
ξεχασμένων παραδόσεων που διαπλέκεται με τις εποχές της αναστάτωσης, τα
κοινωνικά και πολιτικά κινήματα, τις διώξεις και τις συλλογικές απογοητεύσεις.
Παρακολουθώντας τα
χρόνια της Μεγάλης Ύφεσης, τους ελληνοαμερικανούς εθελοντές στις Διεθνείς
Ταξιαρχίες του Ισπανικού Εμφυλίου, τις δραστηριότητες των Ελληνικών Εργατικών
Εκπαιδευτικών Συνδέσμων και τις απελάσεις του Μακαρθισμού το ντοκιμαντέρ Ταξισυνειδησία – η αγνωστη ιστορια του
ελληνοαμερικανικου ριζοσπαστισμου φέρνει στο προσκήνιο μία
εναλλακτική αφήγηση της ελληνοαμερικανικής ιστορίας, η οποία υπογραμμίζει τους
μετασχηματισμούς και τις αλληλεπιδράσεις της εθνοτικής καταγωγής, της τάξης και
του πολιτικού και κοινωνικού ριζοσπαστισμού στον Αμερικανικό 20ο αιώνα.
The documentary narrates
the story of Greek-American radicalism from the era of mass migration till the
McCarthy period in the 50s. A history of collective struggles, radical ideas,
exciting journeys and forgotten traditions interwoven with the times of
upheaval, social and political movements, persecutions and collective
disillusionments.
Focusing from the Great Depression
to the demise of ethnic radicalism in the 50s, the documentary Greek-American Radicals: the Untold Story brings
forth an alternative vision of Greek-American history that highlights the
transformations and multiple interrelations between ethnicity, class and
radicalism.
Film trailer and information:
Skevas, Giorgos. Naked
Hands. Town Film, 2013.
Dimitris Mitropoulos conducted his orchestras
without a baton, with his bare hands. In Giorgos Skevas’ documentary, Lefteris
Voyiatzis meets Dimitris Mitropoulos. Taking its cues from the letters the
maestro exchanged with his dear friend, Kaiti Katsogianni, and from rare
archive footage, the film covers the years in which Mitropoulos lived in the
United States as chief conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and
later the New York Philharmonic, through until his tragic death in La Scala,
Milan, in 1960, conducting Mahler’s Third Symphony.
Stamelos, Valantis. Hello Anatolia. Crescent Street Films, LLC, 2012.
After working in the
corporate world for years, Greek-American filmmaker Chrysovalantis Stamelos
decided it was time to satisfy his desire to search for his roots in Anatolia,
the historical birthplace of his ancestors. So, he picked up and moved to the
homeland of his great-grandparents: Turkey.
His family and friends thought he
was crazy. Maybe he was, but he couldn't shake off the stories he heard growing
up...of old Smyrna and Asia Minor.
Hello
Anatolia follows Stamelos' reconnection with his ancestry through the
exploration of neighborhoods, interviews with Greeks of Turkey, and his
immersion into the art and culture. Stamelos will break down barriers between
two cultures with a history of feuding, as well as build a bridge from the
Aegean to the US.
Produced by Crescent Street Films, LLC (www.csfilms.org).
Executive
produced by Greek America Foundation and Gregory Pappas. Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkHzogsFgH0
c) Reviews
Η φτωχοποίηση την οποία
έχει επιφέρει η πρόσφατη οικονομική κρίση στην ελληνική κοινωνία αποτελεί πηγή
μεγάλης αμηχανίας για την ελληνοαμερικανική διασπορά, η οποία ήδη από τις αρχές
του 20ού αιώνα κατέβαλε μεγάλες προσπάθειες να συμβιβάσει την εθνοτική της
ταυτότητα με τις επιταγές του εξαμερικανισμού. Ενός εξαμερικανισμού στη βάση
των θεμελιωδών αρχών της μεσαίας αστικής τάξης και του «λευκού» προτύπου, και
σε αντιδιαστολή με την εργατική ταξική συνείδηση ή τα εργατικά κινήματα. Η ίδια
αμηχανία έγινε ιδιαίτερα αισθητή κατά τη διάρκεια της συζήτησης που ακολούθησε
την πρόσφατη προβολή του ντοκιμαντέρ Ταξισυνειδησία – Η Άγνωστη Iστορία του Eλληνικού Pιζοσπαστισμού
στο Σταθάκειο Πολιτιστικό Κέντρο στην Αστόρια. Σχόλια από το κοινό όπως «ο
Έλληνας δεν είναι ποτέ κομμουνιστής» και «οι Έλληνες, είτε στην Ελλάδα είτε στη
Νέα Υόρκη, δεν υπήρξαν ποτέ κομμουνιστές» έκαναν σαφές ότι η ιστορία του
ελληνοαμερικανικού ριζοσπαστισμού που αφηγείται το ντοκιμαντέρ, από την εποχή
της μαζικής μετανάστευσης στις Η.Π.Α. στις αρχές του 20ού αιώνα έως τα χρόνια
του μακαρθισμού και της ενσωμάτωσης των μεταναστών στο «αμερικανικό όνειρο»,
αποτελεί πρόκληση. Πρόκληση για το επίσημο ιστορικό αφήγημα (τόσο της
ελληνοαμερικανικής διασποράς όσο και της «μαμάς» πατρίδας) σύμφωνα με το οποίο
το ιδεολόγημα του ελληνισμού είναι ασυμβίβαστο με την ιδεολογία του
κομμουνισμού και της εργατικής ταξικής συνείδησης.
Education
Soumakis, Fevronia K. “Training
the ‘Community Servant’: The Greek Orthodox Church of America and the Teachers
College of St. Basil’s Academy, 1959-1973.” Power
and Authority in the Eastern Christian Experience: Papers of the Sophia
Institute Academic Conference. New York: Theotokos Press, 2010.
The history of Greek
educational institutions and Greek American women’s participation and
experiences in their development in the United States remains largely absent
from the scholarly literature. Despite the emphasis of the vital importance of
Hellenic-Christian paideia found in
official church documents, the press, and other sources, the Greek Orthodox
Church community’s expansive educational efforts, as well as the role of Greek
American and Greek born women who staffed the expanding community day and
afternoon schools throughout the twentieth century have yet to be the subjects
of comprehensive studies. As Greek women in America were actively supporting
the expanding Greek Orthodox educational system as teachers, secretaries, choir
directors, and fundraisers, it was the church hierarchy, which articulated the
needs of the Greek immigrant community and constructed a physical and
ideological space for women to fulfill those needs. In doing so, the hierarchy
ultimately directed their resources and efforts and defined their position
within the community. In this essay, I examine the role of the Greek Orthodox
Church of America in shaping the trajectory of St. Basil’s Academy Teachers
College during the period 1959-1973. Although the College was established in
1944, I focus on the time period when Archbishop Iakovos assumed his position
and turned his attention towards expanding Greek education. This study ends in
1973 when the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America (hereafter
Archdiocese) along with community leaders decided to merge the Teachers College
with the newly established Hellenic College in Brookline, Massachusetts. To
that end, three questions guide this paper: What was the purpose of the
Teachers College and how did it change over time? Who defined this purpose and
why? Who was the college designed for?
Film
c)
Film Scholarship
Georgakas, Dan “Ethnic Humor in American
Film: The Greek Americans.” A Companion
to Film Comedy. Eds. Andrew Horton and Joanna E. Rapf. Chichester, West
Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Patrona Theodora. “Migration, Space and Ethnic
Female Subjectivities: Pantelis Voulgaris' film Brides.” Migration and Exile: Charting New Literary and Artistic Territories.
Ed. Ada Savin. Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 2013.
d)
Film Review
DeWitt, David. “Greek Hero in an All-American
Tale: ‘A Green Story,’ Directed by Nika Agiashvili.” New York Times. 23 May 2013.
Fine
Arts
Manos, Constantinos. A Greek Portfolio: Κωνσταντίνος Μάνος. Athens: Benaki Museum, 1999/2013.
---. Ομιλία και προβολή φωτογραφιών. [Talk
and Projection of Photographs]. Lecture.
Globalization,
Transnationalism, Diaspora
Βεντούρα, Λίνα
και Λάμπρος Μπαλτσιώτης, Επιμ. [Ventoura, Lina and Lambros Baltsiotis, eds.] Το Έθνος Πέραν των Συνόρων: «Ομογενειακές»
Πολιτικές του Εληνικού Κράτους. [The Nation Beyond Borders]. Αθήνα: Βιβλιόραμα,
2013. [Athens: Vivliorama, 2013].
History
a)
Community and Regional Histories
Cassis, Irene and Constantina Michalos. Greeks in Houston. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2013.
Includes 200 black and white images.
Fiorentinos, Panos. Ecclesia: Greek Orthodox Churches of the
Chicago Metropolis. Chicago, IL: Kantyli Inc., 2004.
This coffee-table book includes more than 400 richly
colored photographs and concisely written histories of the 59 churches of the
Chicago Metropolis. Fiorentinos' photographic journey encompassed six states—Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin and included dozens of
interviews with priests and parishioners. Essays by scholars on the Greek
Orthodox Church’s architecture, fundamental beliefs and history, and the
meaning of its icons and symbols further enhance the book.
Frangos, Steve. Greeks in Michigan.
East Lansing Michigan State University Press, 2004.
---. “Long Forgotten Greek Alaskan.” The National Herald. 15 Mar. 2005.
Odzak, Larry. Demetrios
is Now Jimmy: Greek Immigrants in the Southern United States, 1895-1965. Durham. N.C.: Monograph Publishers, 2006.
Rozeas,
Christina. Greeks in Queens. Charleston: Arcadia
Publishing, 2012.
Includes 200 black and white
images.
Skedros,
Constantine J. 100 Years of Faith and Fervor: A History of the Greek Orthodox Church
Community of Greater Salt Lake City, Utah 1905-2005. Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Salt
Lake, 2005.
This
volume gives a comprehensive history of the community and its two churches. It
includes many vintage photographs.
b)
History in Popular Media
Chrissochoidis, Ilias. Spyros P. Skouras, Memoirs (1893-1953). Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2013.
Spyros P. Skouras (1893-1971) was the most
influential Greek immigrant in American history and one of America's preeminent
citizens during the Cold War period. In an astonishing sixty-year career, he
shaped two industries (film and shipping), turned Twentieth Century-Fox into a
global film leader, saved Hollywood by introducing CinemaScope, masterminded
Century City in Los Angeles, and, not least, helped save millions of Greeks
from starvation and disease during World War II. For the first time his story
is being told in his own words and in full detail. Coinciding with Skouras'
120th birth anniversary, this book is a timely contribution to American, Greek
Diaspora, and film historiography that will inspire younger generations to
pursue the intertwined ideals of business excellence and public service.
c) History
and Historiography Scholarship
Hatzidimitriou, Constantine G. “Maria
Economidy: A Pioneering Reformer.” Journal
of the Hellenic Diaspora, 39.1-2 (2013): 29-94
Lalaki, Despina. “On the
Social Construction of Hellenism. Cold War Narratives of Modernity, Development
and Democracy for Greece.” The Journal of Historical Sociology 25.4
(2012).
Hellenism is one of those overarching,
ever-changing narratives always subject to historical circumstances,
intellectual fashions and political needs. Conversely, it is fraught with
meaning and conditioning powers, enabling and constraining imagination and
practical life. In this essay I tease out the hold that the idea of Hellas has
had on post-war Greece and I explore the ways in which the American
anti-communist rhetoric and discussions about political and economic
stabilization appropriated and rearticulated Hellenism. Central to this history
of transformations are the archaeologists; the archaeologists as intellectuals,
as producers of culture who, while stepping in and out of their disciplinary
boundaries, rewrote and legitimized the new ideological properties of Hellenism
while tapping into the resources of their profession.
---. 2013.
“Soldiers of Science – Agents of Culture. American Archaeologists in the Office
of Strategic Services – OSS.” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School
of Classical Studies at Athens 82.1. 2013.
“Scientificity” and appeals to
political independence are invaluable tools when institutions such as the
American School of Classical Studies at Athens attempt to maintain professional
autonomy. Nonetheless, the cooperation of scientists and scholars with the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS), among them archaeologists affiliated with
the American School, suggests a constitutive affinity between political and
cultural leadership. This relationship is here mapped in historical terms,
while, at the same time, sociological categorizations of knowledge and its
employment are used in order to situate archaeologists in their broader social
and political context and to evaluate their work not merely as agents of
disciplinary knowledge but also as agents of culture and cultural change.
Identity
and Immigration
Cardon, Lauren S. “The WASP.” The "White Other" in American
Intermarriage Stories, 1945-2008. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Hantzopoulos, Maria. “Going to Greek School:
the Politics of Religion, Identity, and Culture in Community-Based Greek Language
Schools.” Bilingual Community Education
and Multilingualism : Beyond Heritage Languages in a Global City. Eds.
Ofelia Garcia, Zeena Zakharia and Bahar Otcu. Buffalo, NY: Multilingual
Matters, 2012.
Karpathakis, Anna. “Greeks and Greek
Americans, 1870-1940.” Immigrants in
American History: Arrival, Adaptation, and Integration. Ed. Elliott Robert
Barkan. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013.
Kitroeff. Alexander. "Greek Americans." Immigrant Struggles, Immigrant Gifts.
Eds. Diane Portnoy, Barry Portnoy and Charlie Riggs. Charlottesville, VA: University
of Virginia Press, 2013.
The latest book from the Immigrant Learning Center
addresses some of the most prominent immigrant groups and the most striking
episodes of nativism in American history. The introduction covers American
immigration history and law as they have developed since the late eighteenth
century. The essays that follow--authored by historians, sociologists, and
anthropologists--examine the experiences of a large variety of populations to
discover patterns in both immigration and anti-immigrant sentiment.
Literature
and Poetry
a)
Literature
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2002.
Kokonis,
Nicholas. Out of Arcadia: the American
Odyssey of Angelo Vlahos. Deerfield, IL: St. Basil’s Publishers, 2011.
This
novel features a young man from a poor farm village who immigrates to the
United States to reunite with his childhood sweetheart, to get a college
education, and to help support his family in Greece. Although the book is
fiction, some of the author’s own life experiences help inform the story of
Angelo and the challenges he faces as an immigrant.
Krantz,
Robert. Falling in Love with Sophia.
Irving, CA: Elinas Multimedia, 2009.
This
is a love story between Michael, a Greek American and Sophia, a non-Greek from
Tennessee. Michael, despite challenges such as his parents’ divorce, succeeds
in holding on to his “culture, family and God.”
Lazaridis Power,
Henriette. The Clover House. New
York: Random House, 2013.
A compelling fictional
portrait that illuminates and contrasts the Greece of today with the country
during the troubled era of the early 1940s, under Italian occupation and
burgeoning fascism. […] [An] insightful examination of memory and the
stories that hold us together — or perhaps tear us apart. […] The Clover
House eloquently questions the wisdom of relying too much on memories of the
past as a guide for understanding the present.”
– Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe.
b)
Poetry
Kalogeris, George. Dialogos: Paired Poems in Translation. Champaign, IL: Antilever,
2013.
CANADA
Autobiographies
– Memoirs – Biography
Souvaliotis, Andreas. Misfit: Changemaker with an Edge. Toronto: Andreas Souvaliotis,
2013.
AUSTRALIA
Film