This course frames methodologically selected topics in Modern Greek Literature and places them in their historical, social or cultural context.

What can novels and films teach us about violence and its effects when children are the narrators, protagonists, or on-screen characters through whose eyes we see the world? Why do adults create stories about children while they are living through war and its aftermath? How do literary and cinematic representations of children address adults and illuminate adult fantasies about childhood and the future? Throughout the semester, we will discuss themes of innocence and loss, destruction and survival, family and the state. The novels and films that we will engage all reflect on historical violence in Greece throughout the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, including the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), World War I (1914-1918), the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), the Population Exchange (1923-1924), the lasting effects of the National Schism, the Occupation of Greece during WWII (1941-1944), the Greek Civil War (1945-1949), and dictatorship (1967-1974), as well as the violence of borders, migration, gender, and economic crisis. We will supplement our discussions of Greek literature and film with essays drawn from the disciplines of literary studies, history, and psychoanalysis.

Repeat Rules

Requirements class fulfills