Modern Greek Lessons (ebook)

Argumento de Modern Greek Lessons (ebook)

Through a blend of lively detail and elegant narration, James Faubion immerses us in the cosmopolitan intellectual life of Athens, a centerless city of multiplicities and fragmentations, a city on the "margins of Europe" recovering from the repressive rule of a military junta. Drawing inspiration from Athens and its cultural elite, Faubion explores the meaning of modernity, finding it not in the singular character of "Western civilization" but instead in an increasingly diverse family of practices of reform.

"Modern Greek Lessons seeks to invent a new form for expressing the complexity and ambivalence toward the past, toward Europe, toward the United States, and toward themselves that members of the educated Greek elite struggle with individually and jointly. This is an important contribution from a young scholar who will unquestionably be one of the leading voices of his generation."--Paul Rabinow

"A skilled and compelling writer in the mode of the civilized sojourner. . . . Faubion deals brilliantly with a wide range of topics from contemporary Greek literature to sexuality."--George Marcus, Rice University0Acknowledgments Preface: Terms And Definitions Introduction For the Time Being: Some Notes on the Manners of Modern Lives 3 Pt. I Reviewing Athens 21 1 Model Improbabilities: Athens at First Sight 23 2 Remembering and Remodeling: The Metaleptic Metropolis 64 Pt. II Another Modernity 99 3 Crossing the Threshold: Notes on Conflict at a Certain Greek Airport 101 4 Sovereignty and Its Discontents 122 5 "Everything Is Possible": Notes on the Greek Modern 139 Pt. III After the Colonels: Projects of Self-Definition and Self-Formation Since 1974 157 6 The Self Made: Developing a Postnational Character 159 7 The Works of Margharita Karapanou: Literature as a Technology of Self-Formation 184 8 Men Are Not Always What They Seem: From Sexual Modernization toward Sexual Modernity 213 Epilogue: After the Present 242 Notes 249 Bibliography 271 Index 289