date
- 27.10.2022
seminar
Vassilis Lambropoulos “The tragedy of autonomy in the modern theater of liberation”
Τhe independence of the vast majority of colonized people in the 1960s is justly celebrated as a great era of liberation. It is also discussed in terms of the contradictions of self-determination. As soon as the post-colonial state was established, it fell short of its egalitarian aspirations as it limited domestic dissent, punished political opposition, and faced secessionist challenges that led to civil wars. During that decade, while politicians and intellectuals confronted the dilemmas of governance, several authors wrote major plays to dramatize the antinomies of autonomy. Long before the “tragedy of colonial enlightenment” (David Scott) was theorized, it appeared on the stage. Interestingly, it was placed in the era of the Haitian Revolution, some one hundred fifty years earlier, by Edouard Glissant, Derek Walcott, Lorraine Hansberry, Aimé Cesaire, Langston Hughes, C.L.R. James, and Hénock Trouillot. This seminar draws on political theory, postcolonial thought, and history of drama to discuss the tragedy of autonomy in the second half of the 20th century.
bio
Vassilis Lambropoulos is the C. P. Cavafy Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. He was a Professor of Modern Greek at the University of Michigan (1999-2018) and The Ohio State University (1981-99) where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Modern Greek language, literature, criticism, and culture, as well as literary theory and comparative literature. A native of Athens, Lambropoulos received his B.A. from the University of Athens and his Ph.D. from the University of Thessaloniki. His main research interests are modern Greek culture; classical reception and the classic; civic ethics and democratic politics; tragedy and the tragic; word/poetry and music. His authored books are Literature as National Institution (1988), The Rise of Eurocentrism (1993), and The Tragic Idea (2006). He co-edited the volumes The Text and Its Margins (1985) and Twentieth-Century Literary Theory (1987) and two special issues of academic journals on “The Humanities as Social Technology” (October, 1990) and “Ethical Politics” (South Atlantic Quarterly, 1996). He has been publishing papers, essays, articles, reviews, translations, and interviews in journals, periodicals, and newspapers. He has been serving on the editorial board of several international journals. He explores the notion of revolution as hubris in modern tragedy in a site-in-progress and he blogs on music, literature, friends, and resistance.
seminar video
seminar video
date
- 27.10.2022
bio
Vassilis Lambropoulos is the C. P. Cavafy Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. He was a Professor of Modern Greek at the University of Michigan (1999-2018) and The Ohio State University (1981-99) where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Modern Greek language, literature, criticism, and culture, as well as literary theory and comparative literature. A native of Athens, Lambropoulos received his B.A. from the University of Athens and his Ph.D. from the University of Thessaloniki. His main research interests are modern Greek culture; classical reception and the classic; civic ethics and democratic politics; tragedy and the tragic; word/poetry and music. His authored books are Literature as National Institution (1988), The Rise of Eurocentrism (1993), and The Tragic Idea (2006). He co-edited the volumes The Text and Its Margins (1985) and Twentieth-Century Literary Theory (1987) and two special issues of academic journals on “The Humanities as Social Technology” (October, 1990) and “Ethical Politics” (South Atlantic Quarterly, 1996). He has been publishing papers, essays, articles, reviews, translations, and interviews in journals, periodicals, and newspapers. He has been serving on the editorial board of several international journals. He explores the notion of revolution as hubris in modern tragedy in a site-in-progress and he blogs on music, literature, friends, and resistance.
seminar video
seminar video
seminar
Vassilis Lambropoulos “The tragedy of autonomy in the modern theater of liberation”
Τhe independence of the vast majority of colonized people in the 1960s is justly celebrated as a great era of liberation. It is also discussed in terms of the contradictions of self-determination. As soon as the post-colonial state was established, it fell short of its egalitarian aspirations as it limited domestic dissent, punished political opposition, and faced secessionist challenges that led to civil wars. During that decade, while politicians and intellectuals confronted the dilemmas of governance, several authors wrote major plays to dramatize the antinomies of autonomy. Long before the “tragedy of colonial enlightenment” (David Scott) was theorized, it appeared on the stage. Interestingly, it was placed in the era of the Haitian Revolution, some one hundred fifty years earlier, by Edouard Glissant, Derek Walcott, Lorraine Hansberry, Aimé Cesaire, Langston Hughes, C.L.R. James, and Hénock Trouillot. This seminar draws on political theory, postcolonial thought, and history of drama to discuss the tragedy of autonomy in the second half of the 20th century.
