Premium
On the Social Construction of Hellenism Cold War Narratives of Modernity, Development and Democracy for Greece
Author(s) -
LALAKI DESPINA
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6443.2012.01432.x
Subject(s) - modernity , ideology , narrative , politics , subject (documents) , communism , rhetoric , discipline , meaning (existential) , democracy , sociology , aesthetics , political science , social science , law , epistemology , literature , philosophy , art , linguistics , library science , computer science
Hellenism is one of those overarching, ever‐changing narratives always subject to historical circumstances, intellectual fashions and political needs. Conversely, it is fraught with meaning and conditioning powers, enabling and constraining imagination and practical life. In this essay I tease out the hold that the idea of Hellas has had on post‐war Greece and I explore the ways in which the American anti‐communist rhetoric and discussions about political and economic stabilization appropriated and rearticulated Hellenism. Central to this history of transformations are the archaeologists; the archaeologists as intellectuals, as producers of culture who, while stepping in and out of their disciplinary boundaries, rewrote and legitimized the new ideological properties of Hellenism while tapping into the resources of their profession.