Hellenisms

'This volume offers a penetrating and multifaceted analysis of Hellenic identity from antiquity to the present day. It includes contributions from some of the world's leading scholars and ranges across fields as diverse as history, literature, anthropology, psychoanalysis, cinema, and diaspora studies. This is a fascinating exploration of how Greeks, past and present, at home and abroad, have employed language, religion, cultural memories, folkways, intellectual discourses, conceptions of time, and ethnographic self-representations to proclaim an identity that has had to respond and adapt to the varying conditions of imperialism, conquest, displacement, as well as to the perceived status of Greece within the European and global imagination.' Jonathan M. Hall, University of Chicago, USA 'Although the permutations of Hellenism have been a deeply influential aspect of Western history and culture, usually they have been approached in a geographically and chronologically limited way and by relatively traditional methods. This volume breaks new ground by exploring Hellenic identities more broadly in their richly multifaceted versions through time, and by drawing on some of the most exciting innovations in cultural studies, literary and historical disciplines, anthropology, and other fields. Five chapters trace the development of Hellenisms from antiquity to the Middle Ages, four follow the emergence of Hellenism and Philhellenism in modern Greece and Europe, and the last five investigate the impact of Hellenism on Greece and the Greek diaspora. This is a book which will be of enormous interest not only to specialists of all Greek periods but also to scholars analyzing the transmission and reception of cultural models through history. As a whole, it argues convincingly that the study of the Greeks and of Hellenisms should be intertwined.' Vassilis Lambropoulos, University of Michigan, USA