Editor's Introduction

Abstract

Editor's Introduction Maria Koundoura This is my first issue as Editor and I want to thank my predecessor, Peter Allen, for his excellent work during his tenure. The incoming editors have assisted me tirelessly with this issue, while all of the outgoing editors have ensured a smooth transition. Greg Nichols, my editorial intern from Emerson College, has been invaluable in the production of this issue. Renowned photographer Constantine Manos graciously provided the photo for the cover from his 1972 award-winning book, A Greek Portfolio, reissued in 1999 by the Benaki Museum on the occasion of an accompanying exhibition. The Journal's Editorial Board and the Executive Board of the Modern Greek Studies Association have been very supportive during this transition. My previous editorial experience has taught me that editing a journal is collaborative work. I am delighted to be working with this outstanding group of scholars and all the authors whose manuscripts I look forward to receiving. A tradition of the Journal has been to feature work presented at the Modern Greek Studies Association Biennial Symposium. In keeping with this tradition, we have included articles in this issue on the December 2008 events in Greece, a keynote theme of the 2009 MGSA Vancouver symposium. In consultation with the MGSA Board, we are introducing an "Interventions" section in the journal, which will engage with current issues involving Greece. The first "Interventions" section is represented in this issue by the debate held at Birkbeck College, University of London, on the economic crisis in Greece. My own disciplinary background is in English Studies, having completed a PhD in English Literature at Stanford University, with a special interest in postcolonial and transnational cultures. In my work on transnationalism, Greece is one of the locations I constantly engage with. In my first book, I examined the cultural material that produced Greece as both Europe's origin and Other, in order to address postcolonial theory's revision of the critical discourse on modernity and, in particular, the nation, one of its primary forms. In a forthcoming book, I read contemporary literature to map the poetics of transnational literacy and address questions of culture and globalization, identity and [End Page 171] aesthetics, history and present life. This work on Greece is aligned with the cross-disciplinary nature of Modern Greek Studies. During my tenure as Editor I hope to build on this interdisciplinarity, welcoming submissions on Greece from all fields. As a Greek-Australian-now-American, Greekness, for me, is always found elsewhere, with that elsewhere also being Greece. To the dehistoricizing nature of specialized activities like cultural theory, everyday experience of mobility helps rehistoricize theoretically abstracted concepts like "identity," "nation," "home." [End Page 172] Copyright © 2010 The Johns Hopkins University Press