Demetrios Capetanakis: a Greek poet (coming out) in England

2015

The aim of this talk is not only to present a thematic analysis of the art of AIDS in Greece, but also to address two vital questions: - Why was the art of HIV/AIDS in Greece condemned to invisibility? - Is this invisibility a cultural and aesthetic strategy of undoing and unremembering, or is it just a symptom of queer evolution?

Lament in Greece has been historically linked to notions of cultural continuity and national belonging. As a literary genre or mode of performance, but also as a rhetorical trope, it has had a constitutive role in shaping national identity. Within this ideological context, Greek laments were strategically used by nineteenth-and early twentieth-century folklorists as survivals of an uninterrupted oral tradition , and hence as original proofs of continuity between modern Greeks and their supposed ancestors. Yet, the archives of oral poetry in general were extensively edited-but also partially constructed-by early folklorists in order to serve ideological purposes related to the construction of national identity, and to the promotion of the nation's image according to Western European notions of Hellenism. Furthermore, it was not unusual for these scholars to create themselves quasi-demotic songs, in the manner and style of oral tradition. This was the case, for instance, of Georgios Tertsetis, whose quasi-demotic song 'The Fair Retribution' (H Δικαία Eκδίκησις) raises issues regarding desire between men, but also upon the impossibility of the subjects of such a desire to be mourned and lamented. Departing from an analysis of 'The Fair Retribution', and after offering a selective overview of the discourses of early folklorists regarding the use of Greek laments in the nationalist project, this article proceeds with a self-reflexive account of my lecture-performance Poustia kai Ololygmos: Selections from the Occult Songs of the Greek People. Enacting a pseudo-scientific persona, in this performance I announced the fictive discovery of an archive of Greek laments, which addresses issues of queer mourning and desire, while also bringing to the fore the absence of lament when it comes to queer subjectivities, in the past, but also in the present. KEYWORDS lament queer archive performance nationalism overidentification translation adaptation MARIOS CHATZIPROKOPIOU

Journal of Greek Media & Culture

Lament in Greece has been historically linked to notions of cultural continuity and national belonging. As a literary genre or mode of performance, but also as a rhetorical trope, it has had a constitutive role in shaping national identity. Within this ideological context, Greek laments were strategically used by nineteenth-and early twentieth-century folklorists as survivals of an uninterrupted oral tradition, and hence as original proofs of continuity between modern Greeks and their supposed ancestors. Yet, the archives of oral poetry in general were extensively edited -but also partially constructed -by early folklorists in order to serve ideological purposes related to the construction of national identity, and to the promotion of the nation's image according to Western European notions of Hellenism. Furthermore, it was not unusual for these scholars to create themselves quasidemotic songs, in the manner and style of oral tradition. This was the case, for instance, of Georgios Tertsetis, whose quasi-demotic song 'The Fair Retribution' (H Δικαία Eκδίκησις) raises issues regarding desire between men, but also upon the impossibility of the subjects of such a desire to be mourned and lamented. Departing from an analysis of 'The Fair Retribution', and after offering a selective overview of the discourses of early folklorists regarding the use of Greek laments in the nationalist project, this article proceeds with a self-reflexive account of my lecture-performance Poustia kai Ololygmos: Selections from the Occult Songs of the Greek People. Enacting a pseudo-scientific persona, in this performance I announced the fictive discovery of an archive of Greek laments, which addresses issues of queer mourning and desire, while also bringing to the fore the absence of lament when it comes to queer subjectivities, in the past, but also in the present.

Muziki, 2020

Abstract The musical lyrics of the late Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi (1952–2019), by focusing on social-cultural values and practices, are an unexplored but valuable resource for the purpose of thinking about ubuntu and death. In this article, the authors put forward a nuanced examination of the corpus of Tuku's music on death that reveals multiple, inconsistent, contradictory and interrelated insights into how ubuntu and death speak to each other. Getting to deep understandings of some of these consistencies and contradictions requires examination of the contexts, audiences, motives, and other factors that relate to particular songs. In part because of this the authors do not seek to suggest that any contradictions or inconsistencies they identify are evidence of failures or omissions in Tuku's thoughts on ubuntu and death. Rather, they seek to recognise Tuku's appreciation for how ubuntu and death bear many contingent, commensurable, incommensurable, fragile and even unspeakable meanings in the existential course of a life – in the fearsome face of death. From this vantage point, the authors recognise and value Tuku's practices of (indirect) communication. Specifically, they aver that Tuku's indirect communication exemplifies right ways of talking about concerns relating to how people should live and die. In doing this, they offer new insights into right ways of conducting indirect communication to respectfully communicate, to produce and to reproduce desired societies in which everyone can be the most that they can be.

2011

The aim of this paper is to explore the way that the image of popular musicians in greece is informed, modified and transformed by death. The image of the dying musician has become established in greek tradition and is a common motif in both oral and literary sources where the death of the musician is invariably presented as both a personal and national loss. indeed, it can be argued, that it is at the point of death that the musician truly "belongs" to "the people". in the case of nikos Xylouris and Manos loizos, both musicians were loved and esteemed by friends, colleagues and the general populace alike. Their respective deaths were documented in great detail. Despite the abundance of information, however, the posthumous images which evolved drew on generic, mythic images of the dying and deathless musician already in existence in the culture. My focus is on exploring this process.

Philosophy Study, 2014

The aim of this essay is to provide an analysis of the Euripides' "Phoenician Women" in terms of mourning. The author intends to set a parallel between the ancient tragedy and its modern adaptation staged by one of the most prominent Polish directors Krzysztof Warlikowski. In the essay, the author will discuss how suffering is depicted in the ancient drama and what changes of mourning motif are introduced into its modern performance. The author will examine the literary as well as the (modern) theatrical topos of grief by analyzing the poetics of tragedy (dramatic structure, metaphors of death, dramatis personae, funeral vocabularium, function of laments) and the poetics of performance (stage design, costumes and props, funerary symbolism, acting, directing solutions). The purpose of the paper is to argue against the insignificance of Euripides' drama and the marginalization of Warlikowski's "Phoenician Women." Finally, the author will attempt to indicate the mourning motif as one of the essential and attractive for the ancient tragic plot and the modern performance as well.

MedRen 2018 - Maynooth 5-8 July 2018, 2018

Vitsentzos Kornaros’ chivalric poem Erotokritos (1600 – 1610ca) is a major work of the Cretan Renaissance literature and represents an articulated compendium of the syncretic culture of Venetian Crete. Erotokritos is modelled on one of the most popular 15th century European romances, Pierre de la Cépède’s Paris et Vienne, and it stands out for representing the transposition of western courtly values in early modern Greece. The protagonist Erotokritos, literally “tormented by love”, embodies all the features of the perfect renaissance hero: courtly lover, cultured knight and an ​especially fine singer. Indeed, music, especially monophonic love song, plays a key role in constructing the hero’s identity: it primarily represents the only vehicle of expression of the love’s anguish, which names the protagonist, and also the main communication medium between Erotokritos and his lady, Aretousa. This paper aims to investigate the presence of monophonic love song as a pivotal cultural object of western music and its reception and recreation in the Cretan Renaissance. In order to comprehend its significance in Erotokritos, I will present a detailed comparative analysis of musical features in the original French romance and other earlier adaptations, that possibly served as models for the Cretan poem, including also the Italian prose translation Paris and Vienna. Finally, I will also consider the iconographical implications in the decorations of many of the manuscripts and printed books of both western romance and Cretan poem, trying to offer a complete framing of the phenomenon.

Since the gay liberation movement and second wave feminism, eroticism was one of the main aspects that queer culture revolved around; one that was liberated from social and political proprieties related to matters such as bodies, intimacy and sex. Facing the epidemic, the culture and community around it gained a new visibility, but it also went through a revolution (I will analyse further the split that happened within the gay community in chapters 1 and 2). In this dissertation I want to show the social, historical and political background of the situation that surrounded the AIDS crisis. However, rather than to analyse the history of the AIDS crisis, the aim of this thesis is to look into social responses and the social cultures that emerged because of the epidemic. By taking the AIDS crisis as the background and the main reference, this dissertation is a broader study on contemporary queer culture. By considering the responses to the AIDS crisis through Georges Bataille's theories (especially his correlations between eroticism and death) I want to ask how did AIDS impact queer culture and the contemporary shape of it?

2002