‘The past is a promise to the future’: stories, persons, and the devil in Greece

Tsintjilonis, Dimitri

doi:10.1111/1467-9655.12967

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Historical affect and its evocative qualities demonstrate how social actors tell pasts in their own ways, carve their places in history, and forge relationships with history. However, these actors extend their placements in history and their relationships with history into performative ways of being, which my interlocutors and most mnemonic traditions express as 'we are history' (Löwith 1949;Tsintjilonis 2018;Strange 2018;Firuz 2007). Zoltán Simon (2016) reflects on historical writings' failure to address the role of historians in history-writing and expands the assertion 'we are history' in critique of historians such as Hayden White (1966).…”

Section: Historical Affect Political Transcendence and Being Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It entails sociopolitical or cultural-religious processes that are modes of subjectivity formation/individuation (Simondon 2020), sources of self (Taylor 1992), recraftings of modernity (Gole 2002) and reassertions of cosmologies beyond religion (Latour 2004). I elaborate how these processes exceed historicity (Tsintjilonis 2018) by finding a temporal-historical location (Vejdani 2014) and forming imagined communities (Anderson 1983). I borrow from the experiences of Iranian revolutionary youths and my ethnographic journeys among them to illustrate how the historical affect (Rancière 1994) and history are localized in settings where socialization occurs in reminiscences of past violence.…”

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confidence: 99%

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We are history: historical affect, memory and militancy among revolutionary youth in postwar Iran

Saramifar

2021

Rethinking History

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We are history' is a declaration that traverses identity labels, generational memories and nation building through history. I demonstrate that announcing we are history is a political-mystical practice, and living with evocative historical affect permeated from the reminiscent of past violence. It allows social actors to indulge in a type of transcendence, which expands them into a cosmological scale that exceeds social imaginaries and banalities of everyday life. I borrow from Iranian revolutionary youth's experiences and my ethnographic journeys among Iranian volunteer combatants who fought in Iraq and Syria to illustrate how history is localized in settings which socialization occurs in postwar societies. By way of anthropology of history or doing history in anthropology, I explain how the claim we are history is an attempt to become a community of individuals via history and how social actors turn history into a world-making practice that informs political participation and justifies for them to support authoritarian traits of a state.

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Section: Historical Affect Political Transcendence and Being Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

We are history: historical affect, memory and militancy among revolutionary youth in postwar Iran

Saramifar

2021

Rethinking History

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“…The result was not a partible person, but a vectorial person who had become a conduit of life force. Past, present and future are unravelled by Tsintgilonis (2019) in an article that examines the narratives employed by interlocutors in a contemporary Greece in the throes of an economic crisis as they recount their encounters with the devil. The narratives are structured in such a way that effectively the present and future of the storytellers predate the past of which their stories tell.…”

Section: Backward Glance – Time and Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exquisite Corpses and backward glances: European social anthropology 2019

Martin

2020

Soc Anthropol

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This article provides an overview of the main European social anthropology journals during 2019. It uses the concept of Exquisite Corpses, a technique devised by the Surrealists, an avant-garde art group of the early 20th century, to suggest a practice of transmitting knowledge across periods of fracture. It argues that this process characterises the way that some aspects of social anthropology's canon continue to be transmitted and remain influential, despite having been superseded by time, fashion and changes in social and academic attitudes. A wide range of scholarship is highlighted. Topics focused on include time, relations, borders, bureaucracy, ethics, and the challenges faced by academics in general and anthropologists in particular. These challenges are driven by the emergence of an authoritarian spirit across a number of fields in Europe and beyond, continuing austerity following on from the economic crisis, and the consolidation of an audit culture that drives the university in an ever more neoliberal direction. Despite the current rigorous climate, European social anthropology continues to be vital and relevant.

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Iphigenia's sacrifice: generational historicity as a structure of feeling in times of austerity

Theodossopoulos

2020

Royal Anthropological Inst

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Iphi, an unemployed actor in austerity-ridden Greece, imagines a theatre adaptation of a classic tragedy, Iphigenia at Aulis, in which the heroine is sacrificed on the altar of austerity by politicians. While writing her playscript, Iphi has a dream: she is taken to the sacrificial altar, not by politicians, but by her own parents, the generation who lived through the affluent years before austerity. Iphi's generational-analogical thinking introduces a politically inspiring historicity, which offers insights into the accountability of austerity. It also allows us to reassess the notion of generations as a local category and an anthropological analytical construct. The article indicates the emergence of an as yet not fully articulated generational awareness-a new structure of feeling-about austerity, which is outlined here as it develops in an incipient form. I argue that the emerging generational historicity communicates a critical message, but also hides from view less visible inequalities. Imagine a stage with a sacrificial altar, like those of ancient Greece. Imagine a chorus impersonating impoverished people, the victims of austerity … Imagine the heroine, 'Iphigenia of austerity' , pale, tainted, waiting for her sacrificers, Merkel, Lagarde, and Schäuble, to strike her with knives as they enter the stage. How do you feel at this thought? The audience, people who have suffered from austerity, will reach a state of catharsis from the very first scene! Iphigenia, who shared these thoughts with me, is a 33-year-old unemployed actor and playwright in austerity-ridden Greece. She bears another classical Greek name, but she has adopted 'Iphigenia' (shortened to Iphi) as her pseudonym for this article. 'I don't want to hide my identity' , she said, well aware of academic writing practices; 'rather I want to give a name to my generation … I am Iphigenia, standing for all Iphigenias, a generation sacrificed at the altar of austerity. I want to speak for the people of my generation'. Iphi's provocative ideas invite us to examine an emerging 'generational' historicity which addresses accountability-regarding austerity-in terms of consequences felt by particular age groups. To aid the analysis that follows, I rely on Raymond Williams's notion of 'structures of feeling' (Williams 1977; 1979; Williams & Orrom

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‘The past is a promise to the future’: stories, persons, and the devil in Greece

Cited by 3 publications

References 30 publications

We are history: historical affect, memory and militancy among revolutionary youth in postwar Iran

We are history: historical affect, memory and militancy among revolutionary youth in postwar Iran

Exquisite Corpses and backward glances: European social anthropology 2019

Iphigenia's sacrifice: generational historicity as a structure of feeling in times of austerity

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