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, Europe, Greece, and Australia, gratifyingly by new generation scholars.

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...