The Undying Song:
Writing the Homosexual Body in the long 19th Century and beyond
By Dr. Nikolas Kakkoufa
(Columbia University; currently Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Research Fellow, University of Amsterdam)
Friday, 7 May, 15.30 (CET)
Location: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/88607866042
(Meeting ID: 886 0786 6042)
Language: English
Abstract
2021 marks the Bicentennial of the Greek Revolution with a plethora of activities and events that span the globe and explore its different aspects and connections to the Mediterranean, the world, and Greece today. What seems to be missing from most of these celebrations and academic events is an extensive discussion on the body itself. How are bodies produced, constructed, and regulated before, during, and after the Greek revolution? What is the difference between the way bodies – and desires – were inscribed and transcribed in the everyday life, the literary imagination, and the newly founded constitution and penal code? This talk will take Georgios Tertsetis as a starting point to explore the discourse on the homosexual body in the first half of the 19th century while also considering the possibilities of its reception in a present continuous tense.
Bio
Nikolas P. Kakkoufa (PhD, King’s College London 2015) is a Lecturer in Modern Greek at the Department of Classics, the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Program in Hellenic Studies, and an Affiliate Faculty at the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University, New York. His courses range from beginners to advanced classes in language and culture and seminars on literature and sexuality. His ongoing research projects focus on queer theory, on the image of the city in literature, and on the use of literature and translation pedagogy in second language acquisition. He has given presentations and has published papers on language pedagogy and on the work of Vitsenzo Kornaros, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Kostis Palamas, C.P. Cavafy, Kostas Karyotakis, Nikolas Calas, Lefteris Poulios, Michalis Ganas, and others. He is currently writing a book tentatively titled ‘Word is the flesh’: The Body in the Work of Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, and C. P. Cavafy. During Spring 2021 he is a Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam.
