Papers by Vrasidas Karalis
In the preface of his History of Greek Cinema, Vrasidas Karalis questions the aptness of designat... more In the preface of his History of Greek Cinema, Vrasidas Karalis questions the aptness of designating the filmic corpus that he treats as “Greek, ” wondering whether “it would be fairer to talk about the history of cinema in Greece ” instead (p. xvi).1 Karalis is referring to several related methodological challenges he sees facing the project of writing a Greek film history. First, how to account for films that are recognized internationally as “Greek ” without being made (financed, scripted, directed, acted, filmed, etc.) by or even addressed to Greek nationals. As he puts it, what international audiences came to consider as “Greek cinema ” has not been determined “by films made solely by directors of Greek origin, or, indeed, for Greek audiences ” (ibid.). Another methodological challenge the author highlights has to do with the continuous institutional impact of foreign personnel on Greek filmmaking: “Greek cinema and images about Greece were made by Greeks and non-Greeks alike; ...
Power, Judgment and Political Evil, 2016
... Murphy's other books include Dialectic of Romanticism (with David Roberts, 2004)... more ... Murphy's other books include Dialectic of Romanticism (with David Roberts, 2004) and Civic Justice (2004). Andrew Schaap is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter. His interests include radical democracy, transitional justice, reconciliation and the politics Page 11. ...
Includes image: 'the night responds to my complaints', 1932. Abstract Maria Plyta’s films... more Includes image: 'the night responds to my complaints', 1932. Abstract Maria Plyta’s films are almost completely forgotten today despite the continuing popularity they enjoy when screened on television. There is something parochial and paradoxical in them that ignites more bewilderment and confusion than acceptance or enthusiasm. It is interesting to note that after so many decades of intense feminist film criticism there is only one significant study of her work by Eliza-Anna Delveroudi which deals with her contribution as the first female director. Consequently, we do not possess a digital remastering of none of her films, which circulate in bad and incomplete versions.
Very few things exist in English on Nikos Karouzos, despite the excellent translation of his wor... more Very few things exist in English on Nikos Karouzos, despite the excellent translation of his work by Philip Ramp (Shoestring Press, 2004). Yet his poems are amongst the finest in modern Greek literary tradition and constitute some of the most significant experimentations with grammar, versification and meaning in post-war Greek poetry. While Karouzos never achieved the popularity, or the literary iconic status attributed to other poets like Yannis Ritsos, Tasos Leivaditis, Manolis Anagnostakis and more recently Kiki Dimoula, his poetic idiom is quite distinct, embodying a strange mythography of death, nihilism, faith, doubt, rebellion, fatalism and love for life, all fused in one and all turned against each other. Unlike other poets, Karouzos kept publicity and state recognitions away from him, mocking prizes and awards, taunting all bureaucratic committees and challenging any ministerial or governmental authority on matters of poetry and art.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2012
Modern Greek Studies, Aug 14, 2012
When Mihalis Cacoyannis (1922-2011) went to Athens from England in 1952, he immediately recognise... more When Mihalis Cacoyannis (1922-2011) went to Athens from England in 1952, he immediately recognised the soft, luminous and still unscathed landscape of the city and its environs as his personal cinematic language. He hadn’t been in Athens or in Greece before, as he was born in Cyprus, in a genteel family of colonial officials. The Attic landscape was scarred by the ravages of two wars but not yet deformed by intense industrial development or inordinate urban sprawl. The successful translation of the landscape into a visual idiom which would represent the existential adventure of its inhabitants became one of the most emblematic achievements of Cacoyannis’ film-making throughout his life. At the same time the young cinematographer discovered the Greek film industry in a state of fer - vent reconstruction following the near destruction it had suffered during the previous decade. His immediate contribution can thus be seen both in the context of “film culture” and the “cinema industry” of the country.
Letter to David Brooks from a Certain Greek Friend, 2019
A Letter to the Poet David Brooks
Vrasidas Karalis discusses stardom in Greece in the context of gender relations, with an emphasis... more Vrasidas Karalis discusses stardom in Greece in the context of gender relations, with an emphasis on the history of the construction of masculinity in cinema. Karalis argues that the failure of men in power to construct hegemonic discourses about their authority allowed filmmakers a considerable degree of freedom in the way they constructed their images. Male stars retained psychological power over their audiences only as embodiments of absence and defeat, of a constantly deferred and therefore frustrated integration. Karalis examines how the unstable structures of Greek society and slow economic growth hindered the process of star-making itself. (From the introduction by the editors)
Aesthetic Capitalism, 2014
Every individual. .. neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is pro... more Every individual. .. neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. .. he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
Karalis, Vrasidas. 2009. Η ψυχοδυναμική των διαπολιτισμικών επαφών. In E. Close, G. Couvalis, G. ... more Karalis, Vrasidas. 2009. Η ψυχοδυναμική των διαπολιτισμικών επαφών. In E. Close, G. Couvalis, G. Frazis, M. Palaktsoglou, and M. Tsianikas (eds.) "Greek Research in Australia: Proceedings of the Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, Flinders University June 2007", ...
BERGHAHN PRESS, 2021
Beginning with his first film Reconstruction, released in 1970, Theo Angelopoulos's notoriously c... more Beginning with his first film Reconstruction, released in 1970, Theo Angelopoulos's notoriously complex cinematic language has long explored Greece's contemporary history and questioned European culture and society. The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos offers a detailed study and critical discussion of the acclaimed filmmaker's cinematic aesthetics as they developed over his career, exploring different styles through which Greek and European history, identity, and loss have been visually articulated throughout his oeuvre, as well as his impact on both European and global cinema. "This illuminating book offers a powerful synthesizing account of the films of Theo Angelopoulos by framing them within a biographical context. By positioning Angelopoulos' work within an array of philosophical, cinematic, and art-historical contexts, the author brings us closer to Angelopoulos' existential, political, philosophical and aesthetic quests.
Gurdjieff and C. G. Jung: Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am’ and the Question of Individuation, 2020
The third part of Gurdjieff’s trilogy All and Everything has not been studied sufficiently or ear... more The third part of Gurdjieff’s trilogy All and Everything has not been studied sufficiently or earned any considerable attention by scholars. Its structure seems rather incoherent and circumstantial and its overall message diffused and centerless. However, in the last book Gurdjieff illustrates metonymically the transition from self-consciousness to what he called objective knowledge, a cogitation on the
self and the world around it without any psychological projections or emotional transferences. An analogous approach to the question of the personal and collective identities can be found in C.G. Jung’s principle of individuation according to which the individual has to not only appropriate the collective myths of its society but also to see them “objectively” which means as “social objects.” The present paper discusses the process of psychological projection as advocated by Jung—in order to individuate collective representations and experience the objectivity of the real—while delineating Gurdjieff’s response to one of the central principles of depth psychology.
Can we individuate reality and yet see it without our own projections? Gurdjieff’s answer is more practical than Jung’s but raises complex questions about the ability of human consciousness to reach beyond its own cognitive limitations. Although Gurdjieff’s last book remained unfinished, certain challenging insights into the meaning of “a veritable, nonfantastic representation of the world as it is” are elaborated by P.D. Ouspensky’s The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution (1950)
which essentially attempts to construct a Gurdjieffian theory of the psyche
Karalis, Vrasidas. "Translating Patrick White's novels Voss and the Vivisector into Greek." Southerly, vol. 63, no. 1 p. 133, 2003
An analysis of the translation of tow novels by Patrick White into Greek and the dilemmas pf tran... more An analysis of the translation of tow novels by Patrick White into Greek and the dilemmas pf translation
Comparative Literature and Culture, 2010
:In his article, Vrasidas Karalis explores the notion of sublime or sublimity as the field of col... more :In his article, Vrasidas Karalis explores the notion of sublime or sublimity as the field of colliding signifiers and of experiential frameworks in conflict. Instead of treating the traditional notion as a structural element of style of ideology, he analyses it from the point of its contextual validation and its very historicity: what makes sublimity emerge is the extra-lingual unease, the existential dysphoria of the world outside the text, as refracted through specific works of art. Such dysphoria is expressed through ungrammatical language or/and through the attempt in specific moments in history to reclaim a "totalising vision of experience." Through examples from various cultures Karalis addresses the difference of sublime perceptions that we see around the world. Ultimately, Karalis returns to Pseudo-Longinus's Peri Hypsous in order to explore sublimity as an expression of cultural and existential othering as an attempt to foreground the innovative differentiation in experience
the chapter tries to conceptualise and explore the construction of the field of visuality in Gree... more the chapter tries to conceptualise and explore the construction of the field of visuality in Greek Cinema with special emphasis on the introduction of perspective.
A comprehensive interpretation of Michael Cacoyannis' films
An introduction to the avant-garde Cinema of Antoinetta Angelidi
The first introduction in English of the work of one of the most significant Greek film-makers an... more The first introduction in English of the work of one of the most significant Greek film-makers and the peculiar form of realism we encounter in his movies
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Papers by Vrasidas Karalis
self and the world around it without any psychological projections or emotional transferences. An analogous approach to the question of the personal and collective identities can be found in C.G. Jung’s principle of individuation according to which the individual has to not only appropriate the collective myths of its society but also to see them “objectively” which means as “social objects.” The present paper discusses the process of psychological projection as advocated by Jung—in order to individuate collective representations and experience the objectivity of the real—while delineating Gurdjieff’s response to one of the central principles of depth psychology.
Can we individuate reality and yet see it without our own projections? Gurdjieff’s answer is more practical than Jung’s but raises complex questions about the ability of human consciousness to reach beyond its own cognitive limitations. Although Gurdjieff’s last book remained unfinished, certain challenging insights into the meaning of “a veritable, nonfantastic representation of the world as it is” are elaborated by P.D. Ouspensky’s The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution (1950)
which essentially attempts to construct a Gurdjieffian theory of the psyche
self and the world around it without any psychological projections or emotional transferences. An analogous approach to the question of the personal and collective identities can be found in C.G. Jung’s principle of individuation according to which the individual has to not only appropriate the collective myths of its society but also to see them “objectively” which means as “social objects.” The present paper discusses the process of psychological projection as advocated by Jung—in order to individuate collective representations and experience the objectivity of the real—while delineating Gurdjieff’s response to one of the central principles of depth psychology.
Can we individuate reality and yet see it without our own projections? Gurdjieff’s answer is more practical than Jung’s but raises complex questions about the ability of human consciousness to reach beyond its own cognitive limitations. Although Gurdjieff’s last book remained unfinished, certain challenging insights into the meaning of “a veritable, nonfantastic representation of the world as it is” are elaborated by P.D. Ouspensky’s The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution (1950)
which essentially attempts to construct a Gurdjieffian theory of the psyche