14th Annual International Conference on Mediterranean Studies Program (Athens Local Time) (Note: each presentation includes at least 10 minutes for questions and discussions if available)
Monday 29 March 2021
09.30-10.30 Registration
10.30-11.30 Opening and Welcoming Remarks:
Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER
Yannis Stivachtis, Director, Center for European & Mediterranean Affairs (CEMA) and Professor, Jean Monnet Chair, Director of International Studies Program & Director, Diplomacy Lab Program, Virginia Tech – Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA.
11.30-12.00
Gloria Marchetti, Professor, University of Milan, Italy. Title: The Management of the Coronavirus Emergency by the Italian Government and the Relationship Between State and Regions.
The speech analyzes how the health emergency due to the spread of Covid-19 was handled in Italy. It is aimed at examining: the regulatory framework relating to the management of the pandemic; the role of State and Regions in adopting measures to contain the virus; the coordination between State and Regions to deal with the health crisis. The pandemic was mainly faced by the Government through the use of ordinances of Civil Protection, decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers and ordinances of the Minister of Health. However, the Presidents of the Regions were allowed to adopt, even in the emergency phase, ordinances on health matters – on the basis of art. 32 of Law No. 833 of 1978 – albeit limited to what is established by State provisions. In the speech it is underlined, in particular, that there has been a progressive centralization of emergency management by the President of the Council of Ministers. On one side, as already mentioned, the ordinance power of the Presidents of the Regions has been limited. On the other, the measures adopted by the Government were not the result of concerted decisions with the Regions. This, despite the fact that the structure of legislative (health is not a matter of exclusive competence of the State but rather a concurrent matter between State and Regions) and administrative powers relating to health requires a decentralization of decisions and the application of the principle of loyal collaboration (principle developed first by the Constitutional Court and, subsequently, introduced into the Constitution in 2001) imposes on the State to take concerted decisions with the Regions, in relation to issues that affect their interests. The Regions were involved in the initiative phase of the Prime Minister’s Decrees only through a consultation of the Presidents of the Regions, if these concerned a specific Region, or the President of the so-called “State-Regions Conference” (the body of coordination between the two levels of government) in the case of interventions that involved the entire national territory. In adopting the various emergency measures, therefore, the Government did not resort to the instrument of the agreement in this Conference. Through genuine agreements with the Regions, the Government could have taken concerted decisions, for the purpose of a necessary coordination of the pandemic management, between the levels of government, and in order to take into better account the specific problems of some territories. On the other hand, the Regions have adopted numerous ordinances which, in some cases, have provided for restrictive measures of citizens’ freedoms in contrast compared to those of the State. For these reasons, there has sometimes been a bitter clash between Regions and State during the pandemic period. In light of these considerations, the speech underlines that, during the health emergency period, the tendency towards a centralization of power has strengthened and the model of “cooperative regionalism”, based on the principle of loyal collaboration, which must inform the relationship between State and Regions, has been overlooked.
12.00-12.30
Borja W. Gonzalez Fernandez, Professor, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. Title: The Mediterranean Strategy. Approaches to Lebanese Identity and Politics in Michel Chiha’s Thought.
Lebanon’s independence, back in 1943, has been traditionally mythicized as the auspicious result of the concerted effort undertaken by the Maronite Bishara al-Khuri and the Sunni Riyad al-Sulh, whose political entente was depicted as the supreme realization of the Islamo-Christian compromise underpinning the nascent republic. The National Pact, portrayed, precisely, as the unwritten alliance between Lebanon’s confessional halves brought about a negative consensus, whereby Lebanon belonged neither to West nor to East while, at the same time, acknowledging an ill-defined Arab identity and Arab destiny for the country—an Arab face, in Prime Minister Sulh’s own words. Against the implications of this Arab face, which resulted in Lebanon joining the League of Arab States as a founding member as well as its participation in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, several voices were raised, particularly among Christian circles, questioning Lebanon’s characterization as an Arab entity and advocating for its full independence in the realm of foreign policy. Foremost among these voices was that of the financier, entrepreneur, and journalist Michel Chiha (1891-1954) who, throughout three decades at the forefront of the newspaper he owned, the French-speaking Le Jour, came to develop a possibilist approach to Lebanese identity that shied away from the nationalist interpretations defended by other representatives of the Christian bourgeoisie, while also rejecting the Arabizing views put forward by their Sunni counterparts. Defender of a Levantine approach to his country’s identity, whereby le Liban est libanais, tout simplement, Chiha understood Lebanon as a “country of associated confessional minorities” and developed a cosmopolitan approach to statehood based on cosmopolitanism, openness, and economic laissez-faire. Beyond the corporate federalism that, following the Swiss model, he devised as the best way of managing Lebanon’s demographic heterogeneity, Chiha’s thought is particularly relevant insofar as he became the main representative of the Mediterranean camp in Lebanese politics. Portrayed as a “providential and necessary element in the course of creation,” the Mediterranean had contributed, in Chiha’s view, not only to construct a distinctive Lebanese people—an essentially creolized human community incorporating a plurality of ethnic and cultural roots, separate from its Arab hinterland while, at the same time, linked to wider Mediterranean basin—but also to define the country’s destiny as an “entrepôt where all kinds of monetary dealings [could] take place.” This paper, in analyzing Michel Chiha’s extensive journalistic production, will try to shed further light on the political aspects of his Mediterranean outlook beyond the domestic sphere. Thus, it will be argued that, in advocating for Lebanon’s integration within a NATO-like Mediterranean pact which, bypassing any kind of overarching Arab commitment, would have bound Lebanon—and the rest of the Near East—to the Western camp in the Cold War, Chiha was not only trying to avoid the risk of Soviet encroachment in the region or to stymie the advance of Nasserism with its concomitant socializing policies—which he abhorred—but was also undertaking to preserve the creole spirit of a Lebanese nation whereof he came to think as the last bastion of Levantinism.
12:30-13:00 Mariana Sampayo, Professor, Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, Portugal. Silvia Mendes, Professor, Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, Portugal.
Title: Tunisia and Algeria: Two Stages of the Arab Spring.
The “Arab Spring” with the political, social and economic transformations it has caused is a movement that ended up lasting over time and, necessarily, because it is the same and different in each of the countries in which it took place. This diversity of situations turned out to be clear in the two Maghreb countries to which we will dedicate ourselves in this article. Indeed, if Tunisia underwent changes in the first moments, Algeria did not begin to feel the changes in its organizational structure until the end of 2018. Our analysis will be to verify what happened individually in each country in terms of social, legal and economic structures and then to establish a comparison between the current situation of the two countries and the effectiveness of the changes. In economic terms, Tunisia is in a process of economic reform and liberalization after decades of state participation in the economy. The Tunisian government has faced the challenges of reassuring companies and investors, protecting the country’s financial system, combating high unemployment and reducing economic disparities between the most developed coastal region and the impoverished interior. Algeria being classified as a medium-high income country by the World Bank, its economy continues to be dominated by the State, a legacy of the country’s post-independence socialist development model. We will necessarily have to make a descriptive, but also a special analysis of the phenomena that have occurred or are occurring in these countries. These, without forgetting the proximity of these territories to the European Union and the importance of analyzing the changes that in terms of relations between the North and the South of the Mediterranean resulted, were factors of change or remained as a result of the “Arab Spring”. Within this framework, we will refer, in particular, to the framework of Algeria’s and Tunisia’s relations with Portugal, the country from which we come.
13:00-13:30
Özge Can, Assistant Professor, Yaşar University, Turkey. Defne Gönenç, Researcher, Yaşar University, Turkey. Title: Democratizing Environmental Governance? A Relationship-based Evaluation of Environmental Civil Society’s Democratizing Potential.
Environmental governance is an area where stakeholder-based democracy experiments aim to establish participatory forms of relations between state, non-state and market actors. The purpose is to enhance legitimacy, accountability and participation through promotion of advancing civil society’s potential. Nevertheless, the extent to which environmental governance is an area where interests between state, capital and society regularly clash, making democratic legitimacy a pressing problem. The relations between state, non-state and market actors as well as the relations among non-state actors raise questions about the environmental civil society’s democratizing potential. By analyzing primary quantitative data collected via survey from 146 non-state environmental organizations, this research examines the relations between state, non-state and market actors in the Aegean region of Turkey. We explore whether and how these environmental groups associate with each other as well as with diverse public and private actors about environmental governance. Since Aegean region of Turkey is a rapidly developing area with significant and diverse environmental problems, it exemplifies well the extent to which the relations between state, non-state and market actors challenge the democratizing potential of civil society.
13:30-14:00 Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER. (Slides) (Full Paper) Title: Turkey at the Dawn of the 2020s: Old Challenges and New Prospects
Turkey is a great power as this is measured by its population and economy. The question is whether she is so great that can play a decisive and, in many cases, antagonistic if not adversary role vis-a-vis her allies of the so-called western world. Apart from the rhetoric of the current Turkish leadership, her role is restricted by her commitment to international organization such as NATO when it comes to politico-military independence and European Union when it comes to politico-economic independence. It seems that Turkey has no other political and economic choice but to align her international ambitions with the priorities of its traditional allies of the western world even if this would require some sort of compromise. This would result from either her “free choice” or would be forced upon her by the use of soft and hard policies. The latter might include the threat of military action.
14:00-14:30 Lunch
14:30-15:00 Francesca Galgano, Professor, University Federico II Naples, Italy Title: Out & Around- Throughout Roman and Byzantine Empires: Some Reflections.
This lecture aims to focus on the importance of landscape as far as concerning cultural and political identity. Some travel tales coming from Roman and then Byzantine Empires will be commented in order to show how crucial the perception of landscape could be in order to build the sense of belonging to a community.
15:00-15:30 Monika Komusanac, Assistant Professor, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Title: Demographic Resources and Potentials of the Middle East-Mediterranean Area and National Security? What Can We Expect in the Future?
The great migration crisis of 2015 and the force of displacement of about 2.5 million inhabitants towards Europe changed the classic notion of international migration and European and national security as security primarily of borders and border areas. The problem of dealing with a large influx of population took place on several levels, primarily the humanitarian, refugee, exile, and only then according to the demographic, especially immigration component. The events of 2015 showed Europe’s unpreparedness for a major migration wave and the importance of immigration selective policies in preserving national identity. The analysis of the total population movement in the Middle East-Mediterranean area since 2010 shows significant demographic resources and potentials expressed by standard analytical indicators of natural and total population movement on the basis of which it was necessary to identify, observe and predict the launch of large demographic potential towards Europe. The demographic trends in the area from 2010 until today and the UN projections until 2100 confirm the continuation of the announced demographic trends, with more or less pronounced intensity. Africa’s population will grow by 1.2 billion by the middle of the century, and by almost 3 billion by the end of the century, showing the greatest demographic potential, according to which, 40% of the world’s population will live in 2100. At the same time, the demographic potential of Asia will decrease from the middle of the century in favor of the African population, and in the regional context it is especially important to point out that by the end of the century the demographic potential of North Africa and West Asia is expected to increase to 900 million or almost 9% of the world’s population in 2100. Current demographic pressure with around 525 million inhabitants in the wider Middle East Mediterranean area will continue to increase, with the largest absolute increases expected in Egypt (122 million), Sudan (98 million), Iraq (68 million), Algeria (26 million), Yemen (23 million), Syria (18 million) and Israel (9 million) which together will account for 40% of the region’s growth by the end of the century. In line with stated and the socio-political instability of this region, migration waves to Europe will long be a potential threat to demographically aging and demographically poor Europe, which, by the end of the century expects a demographic loss of 118 million inhabitants or 18% of today’s population. Two separate, demographically different areas, in line with the potential of the Middle East Mediterranean population and the lack of potential of the European domicile population, could greatly change the European demographic picture and structures by the end of the century.
15:30-16:00 Nicholas Pappas, Vice President of Academic Conferences and Meetings, ATINER & Professor of History, Sam Houston University, USA. Title: Sam Houston and the Greek Revolution.
This writer has taught history at Sam Houston State University for over 30 years. It is named after Sam Houston, a liberator of Texas who had one of the most amazing careers in the early American Republic. He was born a decade after the American Revolution in Virginia and moved as a child to Tennessee. He ran away and joined the Cherokee Indian tribe as a youth, and later renewed his ties with them as an honorary member of the tribe, known as Raven. became a liaison of the tribe during its most trying period of removal to the Oklahoma territories. He was a volunteer soldier and officer under Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, and became a supporter of Andrew Jackson in the latter’s rise to the presidency. Subsequently, Houston ran and was elected to the United States Congress for Tennessee in 1822 at the age of thirty and served for two terms from March 1823 until March 1827. He was then elected Governor of Tennessee from 1827 to 1829, resigning under a cloud of a failed marriage and returned to the Cherokee, now in Oklahoma territory, as a trader and a member of the tribe. He then moved to the Texas in 1835 and participated in an effort to establish separate statehood for Texas within the Republic of Mexico. The strongman of Mexico rejected autonomy for Texas and planned to crush it by force, as he had done to Zacatecas and other Mexican States. Houston joined the Texas constitutional convention and was appointed commander-in chief of the army of Texas. After his forces endured the siege and massacre at the Alamo, as well as the slaughter at Goliad, Houston retreated his forces until he caught the encamped Mexican forces at San Jacinto. After the Texans avenged the Alamo in a bloody dawn attack, Houston negotiated the withdrawal of Santa Ana and his forces from most of Texas and assured Texas independence. He subsequently served as President of the Texas Republic, 1836-1838, 1841-1844. When Texas became part of the United States, Houston served in the U.S. Senate from 1846 to 1859. That same year, he was elected Governor of Texas, but was deposed at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 because he favored remaining in the Union and refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, He died in enforced retirement in Huntsville, Texas, in 1873. While volumes have been written on his remarkable cursus honorum, this presentation will investigate Sam Houston’s first major speech as a congressman in 1825 in which he favored independence of Revolutionary Greece through diplomatic recognition. It will look into whatever impact it had at the time and whether it influenced in his later roles as a liberator of Texas and as a confessor for the maintenance of the American Union.
16:00-16:30 David Philip Wick, Retired Professor of History, Gordon College, USA. Title: Scipio Africanus Before Africa – Embryonic Moments of Strategic Poise (a Few Glimpses of the Mediterranean Discovering a Key to Strategic Leadership).
This study follows a few of the improvisations and developing methods of Scipio Africanus after his formative years in Spain that suggest he was stumbling or getting a clear view of something I call strategic poise, and was beginning to draw lessons from facing his largest challenge – the solution to Hannibal’s presence in Italy after more than a decade of Senatorial (Fabian) guerilla warfare had failed to drive him from the peninsula. Scipio faced an awkward military puzzle with active opposition in his own government, access to money and recruitment in only the most “lateral” of ways, and the need to eliminate Hannibal (if possible) in a fashion that did no further damage to a demographically, emotionally and agriculturally ruined Italy. Typical studies of standout Roman military innovators during the age of the Republic tend either to concentrate on some inherent resilience or superiority in the “Roman system” of legionary warfare or logistics, or instead deal with broad concepts of strategy and leadership or “genius.” Neither precisely hits the distinctively Roman mixture of ad hoc effectiveness in Rome’s most successful (and often, least typical) commanders, nor those distinctively Roman elements that allowed them (often with troops as improvised as their military solutions) to win the Republic’s more awkward conflicts. Liddell Hart, decades ago, defined his solution as one of the early classics of the “indirect approach,” but (while true) his analysis begs the really interesting question – how was a precariously placed and thinly supported commander like Scipio able to make of both his few tactical options and his extremely ad hoc troop and officer resources a force capable of carrying out a bold, sleight-of-hand operation like the invasion of Africa, the luring (via a shocked Carthaginian government) of Hannibal across the Mediterranean, and Hannibal’s defeat – using something like the Barca general’s own tactics. The larger lesson in this is the identification of something for which ancient historians and strategy studies have not yet provided an adequate name: the ability not only to conceive a bold, indirect solution to an awkward strategic/tactical problem, but to (improvisationally) build together a team of soldiers, officers, skills and resources that can allow:
• Effective execution of the plan while facing opposition and changing, inconvenient circumstances, trusting subordinates with the right skill sets to continue unfolding a recognizable version of the idea as circumstances shift
• The ability to implement or improvise one’s resources “into” the plan or parts of it at very short notice, or in circumstances not quite identical to what subordinates have been briefed to expect. Curiously, this is not the set of abilities typically invoked to explain Roman success. This is an historical study (and ancient one), but could apply to conflict, negotiation and business in many other fields.
16:30-17:00 Yannis Stivachtis, Director, Center for European & Mediterranean Affairs (CEMA) and Professor, Jean Monnet Chair, Director of International Studies Program & Director, Diplomacy Lab Program, Virginia Tech – Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA. Title: The European Union and the Mediterranean: Strategies, Institutional Frameworks & Policies.
(The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
Tuesday 30 March 2021
08:00-11:00 Urban Walk (The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
11:00-11:30 Utku Ozer, Research Fellow, ATINER. Title: Russia and the Greek Revolution: The role of the Russian Empire in Greece’s Road to Independence.
2021 marks the bicentennial of the events, known as the Greek Revolution that led to the establishment of an independent Greek state. The independence came after almost ten years of fighting and diplomacy that involved not only the Greeks and the Ottoman Empire but also the Great Powers of Europe. The Russian Empire played a decisive role in this process. When the events broke out in Greece, the Powers had already agreed at the Congress of Vienna six years ago, never to let revolutionary and nationalist movements disturb the peace and threaten the monarchies of Europe. Holy Alliance, Quadruple Alliance, and Quintuple Alliance were all formed to protect the Concert of Europe and acted accordingly until the Greek Revolution started. The Greek Revolution created the first crack in the Alliance, as Russia called for intervention in favor of the Greeks. Supporting an independence movement against a monarchy was against the principles of the Congress System, but fit into Russia’s Mediterranean policy. Since the fall of the Byzantine Empire, Russia claimed to be its successor and its territories, which made it rivals with the Ottoman Empire. Russia’s Greek policy was shaped by this general framework. Yet even though it wanted to intervene immediately once the fighting began between the Greeks and the Ottomans, it did want to do so along with the Alliance, or at least with its approval. This was not possible as early as 1821, and Russia was not willing to act alone against the system it had contributed so much to build. But it was also not willing to give up pursuing its Greek policy, to which it returned to in 1824 and initiated the chain of events and interventions that would lead to Greek independence. This presentation aims to discuss Russia’s role through the course of events that took place from 1821 when the revolutionary movement started to 1830 when the independence of Greece was declared.
11:30-12:00 Maria Rosaria D’Acierno, Associate Professor, University of Naples Parthenope, Italy. Title: Fables and Myths, an Old Tradition Coming from Ancient India and Travelling all over The World.
This essay is the result of a study about the importance of fables during the growth of children and the relationship with their parents. The research wants to focus on how old and how important is this literary genre for both parents and children. It also aims at tracing the common feelings and expectations shared by different populations during diverse ages, since each fable takes inspiration from ancient myths and traditions. Fables and stories are a genre generally thought for children only, but it is not precisely like this, and in this work, I focus on this notion trying to stimulate the whole family. Fables are above all a vital strand rich in cultural data, so that they spread customs which are important details enriching the mind and the behaviour of the people reading them. While tracing popular traditions and cultural data related to each country, they transfer these items into common feelings and desires; in so doing they transmit old ways of life and thinking. The different languages are only conventional sounds and signs, rather the problems confronting all lands and races are identical. Languages, as attested by Wilson, “are fundamentally the same; they are all made out of the raw material of sound, and they are all designed to translate a common world …” (Wilson R.A., 1949: 168). In fact, the stories we read to our children, want to give them some ordinary advice, as for instance respecting people, helping the poor, or the one in need, etc.: human principles related to any human being. My fables have been stimulated by the Indian Paňchatantra, and by going through the ancient Persian and Greek myths, they arrive at the old northern sagas, each having different heroes always promoting the same ideals. They have either a diachronic or a synchronic dimension because, even though they have been inspired by old myths, these fables adapt to recent situations. In so doing, they trace a common field between the old and the new. The introduction of each fable is a kind of historical background preparing the event of the story which describes a contemporary event. Parents are suggested to read the introduction, so to be able to answer their children’s possible questions, being careful not to anticipate any comments in order to favour their opinion.
12:00-12:30 Pierluigi Romanello, Researcher, University of Salerno, Italy. Title: Between Law and Propaganda: The Aqueduct of Augustus.
In Mediterranean society, the role of supplying water has clearly played a primary value. Specifically, Rome, a city plenty of water, was a Mediterranean center not only for water engineering, but also for the regulatory measures concerning the supply of water by the population. It is interesting to think that among the most ancient criminal laws, there was aquae et ignis interdictio, that is the deprivation of access to water for guilty citizens. During the Roman legal experience, the aqueducts have characterized the landscape even in remote provinces. In Campania, the garden of the empire, passed the famous Augustan aqueduct, which supplied the places of delights of the Roman aristocracy, and the commercial cities that opened up to the Mediterranean. So, running water was not only a necessary source of life but also an important financial income, an instrument of reign and propaganda for Rome.* The historical and juridical sources are numerous. We detect legal and literary evidence on water from the Republican age up to the entire period of the empire. The great jurists, the great historians, but also the great writers have questioned not only about “water” but also about the nature that should have this right. The analysis of some events of the Augustan Campanian aqueduct can therefore be used to observe a phenomenon in particular but also in its entirety. The study of such antique phenomenon, and the solutions that have been found in ancient times, can also be useful to understand the regulatory challenges that the world is facing today for water.
12:30-13:00 Ali Hussein, Associate Professor, University of Haifa, Israel. Title: Two Main Sources for Abu Dhuʾayb al-Hudhali’s Famous Elegy.
This presentation considers the celebrated elegy by the classical 1st/7th century Arabic poet, Abu Dhuʾayb al-Hudhali —his ‘ayniyya, which ends with ʿayn as a rhyming letter. Analyzing the poem’s structure and comparing it with that of two poems composed by Abu Dhuʾayb’s teacher, Saʿida b. Juʾayya, it concludes that Saʿida’s two poems were the main sources on which the pupil drew to create his own. The sophisticated changes that Abu Dhuʾayb introduced in structure and content, however, made his poem more memorable than those of his teacher. The presentation raises another question, to which there is, as yet, no definitive answer: what was the true inspiration for Abu Dhuʾayb’s poem? Was it the death of his sons, as is traditionally believed, or was it literary — surpassing his teacher in composing a more skillful poem?
13:00-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:00 Osman Guldemir, Assistant Professor, Anadolu University, Turkey. Title: Baklava Recipes from the Greek King Otto I to the Present.
Desserts have a remarkable place in culinary cultures. Turkey that one of a Mediterranean society has a wide variety of dessert categories (Like fruity, milky, dough and dessert with sherbet). Among these varieties, baklava is important because of its international recognition and its place in important days and tables in the society. Baklava has many varieties such as melon, curd, almond, hazelnut and pistachio from past to present. Friedrich Unger, the confectioner of Otto I, the first king of Greece, visited Istanbul in 1835. He studied the works of halvah and confectioners in the city and compiled their recipes. “Conditorie des Orients”, published by Unger in 1838, is a unique resource for Ottoman confectionery. One of the recipes in this book is baklava. In this study, the recipe for baklava written by Unger was compared with the recipes for baklava in two sources. The first of these is the 19th century Ottoman Turkish cookbook Kitabüt Tabbahin. The other is the Turkish Cuisine book, which includes the recipes of today’s classic Turkish dishes. Baklava with almond recipes in these three books were compared with three general criteria. The first of these criteria is the material used, the second is the preparation of the baklava, and the third is the nutritional values. Flour is used in all three recipes. In the first recipe, especially honey is used as a sweetener, it is emphasized that honey or sugar can be used in the second, and sugar is used in the third. Their preparations (techniques) are very similar, with slight differences. Nutritional values also show changes due to the difference in the material used. In future studies, preparing standard recipes and performing sensory analyzes of three recipes will enable different evaluations.
14:00-14:30 Eleonora Pappalardo, Professor, University of Catania, Italy. Title: Pottery Styles in Transition in Iron Age Crete.
Researches concerning Cretan Protogeometric period (X-VIII cent. B.C.) must be considered crucial in the comprehension of the sociopolitical dynamics involving Mediterranean Dark-Age, because they focus into a period of general reconfiguration of complex societies. They rise issues concerning East-West relationships, new commercial routes and enterprises, meetings of cultures far from each other, formation and, then, transformation of social structures. This is the period in which the roots of the concept of “Greek Polis” sinks, and the preparation of a precise social and ideological substratum takes place. The Cretan Protogeometric B period (PGB) (850-800 b.C. ca.) chronologically coincides with the continental early Middle Geometric, but in comparison with this last is characterized by innovative stylistic features mostly for what concerns pottery production and decoration. The central role of Crete in the renewed interconnections with Near East, starting from the early X cent. b.C., determined an almost sudden adoption in the island of a handicraft production rich of figured features, largely influenced by the composite Oriental repertoire, that in PGB period will reach the apex. The PGB pottery, in this context, emerges for its peculiar shapes (in some cases totally different from the previous Protogeometric ones) and, mostly for the richness of its figurative repertoire. Issues concerning migration, itinerant craftsmen (in particular bronze-workers and ivory carvers), route trades involve IX cent. Crete and they must be considered in the attempt to clarify the role of the island in the formation of the “Greek Art”. In last years I devoted my research on determining whether the Protogeometric B must be considered as a true “archaeological phase”, involving several specific aspects of material culture, or just a “style”, limited to the pottery Cretan production (in particular straight-sided pithoi). This paper deals with the preliminary results of the systematic analysis of the PGB pottery found in the necropolis of Siderospilias, in Prinias, carried out thanks to grants awarded by INSTAP (Institute for Aegean Prehistory) of Phildelphia and University of Catania. At the moment, the research carried out has already highlighted that a local workshop produced pithoi of high quality, slightly different in shape and style. The recognition of internal differences was fundamental in advancing the hypothesis of an independent development (from the Late Protogeometric to the early Geometric period), apparently inverted in comparison with the Knossos one. In the meantime, the peculiar production of Prinias seems to testify an early adoption of precise iconographic patterns, as the association bird/sacred tree, already visible on bell kraters if Protogeometric tradition. Just on this last aspect this paper will focus, by comparing the formation of the PGB style in Prinias with the one of the important Iron Age centre of Knossos.
14:30-15:00 Laura Blazquez Cruz, Researcher, University of Jaén, Spain. Title: The Transgender and the Corrupt Body in Psycho (1959), by Robert Bloch.
Often analyzed from a psychological point of view, dealing with the protagonist’s Oedipus Complex, the novel Psycho (1959), by Robert Bloch, has also been read on the basis of a gender perspective, focusing on the presence of transgender elements. Although this is a topic which was socially repressed at the time of the novel’s publication, it is normally salient in literature by usually relegating the transgender characters outside the community and/or characterizing them with physical or psychological traits in such a way that the reader identifies them as agents not socially integrated.Our research aims at analyzing the way Bloch portrays the body of the transgender actant together with the doppelgänger’s (un)corruptible corpse. Both physical and social aspects are key factors in the representation of the repressed other as that fractured and monstrous part of society which must rot and be hidden away in left-over spaces from the standard social collective. However, there is an evident need to show the body of ‘the other’, even if corrupted and not meeting the social expectations of the so-called normality. Bloch uses different literary techniques for this purpose, such as the first and third person narration, the latter being the way to express how the repressed ones describe themselves as well as the way society perceives them externally. All in all, the core element in Psycho is the corpse since it is the trope which allows a shift of perspective in the narration and, consequently, exposes –by means of its (un)corruptibility–, the transgender presence in the novel.
15:00-15:30 Georgios Zouridakis, Research Fellow, ATINER. Title: Greek Law: A Job Well Done, or the long Road Ahead?
The improvement of shareholder protection in public limited companies has been an expressly stated intention of the Greek legislator in the reforms passed during the past two decades, as part of a policy aiming to create an attractive, competitive and investor-friendly framework. Did the statutory provisions that came into force deliver though? To answer this question this study provides a critical assessment of the impact that two major reforms, taking place in 2007 and 2018, had on shareholder law. It identifies a tri-partite strategy followed by the legislator: increasing the availability of existing rights, introducing new ones (and new mechanisms of protection) and correcting inconsistencies and ambiguities in the literary setting of existing provisions. The study shows that both reforms – despite consigning much of the arcane and convoluted statutory wording to the dustbin- did not result in an overhaul, nor did they intend to; rather, baby steps were taken towards a rather myopic perception of minority protection. In fact, neither the lowering of mandatory shareholder ownership thresholds, nor the transposition of EU rules gave the ‘desired comparative edge’ to Greek law against its counterparts on that field, whilst the new rights and mechanisms only marginally (if at all) contribute to the shareholder protection apparatus and many issues, related to the latter and -more importantly- to corporate governance, were left unaddressed. There remains, therefore, some space to be covered by the Greek legislature, even from the viewpoint of regulatory competition it perceives to find itself in.
20:00-21:30 Dinner (The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
Wednesday 31 March 2021
Educational Islands Cruise
(The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
Thursday 1 April 2021Delphi Tour
(The event did not take place due to the limited number of attendance. Those who paid and were not able to attend will be offered a free voucher according to our policy: https://www.atiner.gr/coronavirus)
Scientific and Organizing Committee
Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER.
Steven Oberhelman, Vice President of International Programs, ATINER, Interim Dean & Professor of Classics, Holder of the George Sumey Jr Endowed Professorship of Liberal Arts, and Texas A&M University, USA.
Nicholas Pappas, Vice President of Academic Membership, ATINER & Professor of History, Sam Houston University, USA.
Zoe Boutsioli, Vice President of Publications, ATINER & Teaching Staff, Neapolis University Pafos, Cyprus.
Yannis Stivachtis, Director, Center for European & Mediterranean Affairs (CEMA) and Professor, Jean Monnet Chair, Director of International Studies Program & Director, Diplomacy Lab Program, Virginia Tech – Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA.
Dr. Nikolaos I. Liodakis, Director, Social Sciences Division, ATINER & Associate Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.
Jayoung Che, Head, History Unit, ATINER & Visiting Professor, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea.
Valia Kasimati, Head, Tourism, Leisure & Recreation Unit,ATINER & Researcher, Department of Economic Analysis & Research, Central Bank of Greece, Greece.
