Greek Americans


THE GREEK REVOLUTION AND THE GREEK DIASPORA IN NORTH AMERICA


The Book Culture of Greek Americans

In my current project, The Book Culture of Greek Americans, I address the orality-literacy controversy by contextualizing literature in the diaspora. The range of Greek-American books produced at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century is extensive in both “high” and “low” editions, for adults and for children. These include religious, instructional, literary, bilingual or monolingual texts, as well as community periodicals. I investigate the role of the producers (authors and/or publishers) to the (re)production of ethnicity. In particular, I contrast publications by intellectuals to those by popular authors to demonstrate that different motivations produce different perceptions of home, belonging, and repatriation. I conclude that all these publications were crucial to Greek immigrants’ cultural education, and aimed at strengthening ties within the immigrant community.


Popular Literature

In my first book Heimat – Glaube – Familie. Wertevermittlung in griechischen Popularmärchen 1870-1970 (Home – Faith – Family. Transmission of Values in Greek Popular Booklets of Tales, 1870-1970) – a monograph (2006) based on my dissertation – I argued that cheap publications, mostly anonymously authored, constitute an important medium for the distribution of fairy tales. I coined the term Popularmärchen to demonstrate their differences in terms of production, distribution, and reception from “good” editions of tales. Through close readings I demonstrated the linguistic and aesthetic ways in which the popular novel, the dominant genre of popular literature, played an influential role in the transformation of oral folktales into popular booklets. Also I examined how Popularmärchen offer different literary frames for the adaptation of European fairy tales into Greek. This area of my research contributes to contemporary discussions about relationships between orality and print by providing concrete examples of historical dialogue between oral material and popular print.

Book Reviews

Folklore of Migration

Greece has experienced several migration waves. Based on several (scholarly and popular) collections of oral literature, I investigate how the experience of migration and repatriation is depicted in Greek folk traditions since the 19th century. Foreign land (“xenitiá”) can have multiple geographical meanings, expanding form the next village to the whole world. Whereas xenitiá in folk poetry equals “double death”, in folk prose receives ambivalent connotations. In folktales, for instance, foreign land is opportunity where a cosmopolitan hero succeeds, yet traumatic loss where the hero remains a struggling immigrant. Common denominator for all symbolic representations is the nostalgic return to the homeland. With this project I not only contribute to the discussion that oral traditions are historical documents, but I further explore how these oral stories support the narratives of migration and repatriation.

Foreign language pedagogy

Folktales for Learning Modern Greek

Through my language teaching at Yale I conceived the idea for a textbook publication: In 2015 I published The Routledge Modern Greek Reader. Greek Folktales for Learning Modern Greek, Routledge. The goal of this book is to offer the pedagogical tools to utilize Greek folktales for language acquisition. Folktales constitute multi-layered material that enhances both language and cultural instruction. In my two essays “Cinderella goes to Class” (2017), and “I Cannot Understand You” (forthcoming) I emphasize the importance of folktales in a foreign language curriculum, and examine how folktales offer an alternative approach to develop oral and written skills. I offer concrete pedagogical suggestions for activities in a foreign language classroom. Through folktales students can enhance their vocabulary, as well as their understanding of the morphology, semantics, and syntax of the language. Furthermore, learners sharpen their cultural sensitivity to the foreign culture.

Book Reviews
Amazon Book Review


Heritage language learning

My current language pedagogy project is on heritage language learners. I am a participant in a collaborative research project among seven languages at Yale University (Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Russian and Spanish). The uniqueness of this multi-language project is its student-centered focus: Students, after having answered an anonymous questionnaire, met with each other to discuss three issues according to their experiences as heritage learners: identity, personal motivation and the learning process. I investigate how family and community are responsible for the formation of identity, one of the core issues to heritage language education. With my colleagues I have presented some preliminary results in national conferences.


Edited Booklets

Kaliambou, Maria (ed.)  Learning about the Greek Revolution. Modern Greek at Yale. Fall 2021. New Haven: Yale Printing and Publishing Services.

The publication Learning about the Greek Revolution is the fourth booklet of the series Modern Greek at Yale. The series includes the creative and reflective writings of students learning modern Greek. The 2021 edition was published in an important year for Greece and for the Hellenic Studies Program at Yale as we celebrate two important events: the two hundredth year anniversary of the Greek Revolution, and twenty years of the Hellenic Studies Program at Yale!

 

Kaliambou, Maria (ed.). Interviewing Greek-Americans. Modern Greek at Yale. New Haven: Yale Printing and Publishing Services. Fall 2012.

For this project students had to develop their ethnographic skills. They had to interact with Greek-Americans and ask them about their lives and their personal histories. Part of their assignment was to present in class the results of their interviews. At the end of the semester the students had to compose an essay based on both the information they gathered as well as their experiences of being ethnographers in a foreign language. The students interviewed family members, friends and members from the New Haven Greek community. For some, particularly those who are Greek-Americans themselves, it was very profound to come closer to their relatives and their family history. For others, the task to conduct interviews with unknown people was a challenging and yet stimulating experience. The stories included here are moving and in some cases overwhelming. Personal history surpasses the official history. I am grateful to all for their participation.


Kaliambou, Maria (ed.). Cinderella. The Light of God. New Haven: Yale Printing and Publishing Services. Spring 2012.

In spring 2012 a group of students collaborated to play Cinderella. The Light of God, written and produced by Andrew Sotiriou. This production was the successful culmination of various endeavors that brought my students in contact with Greek language and culture. Our first experience together was a class trip to Greece in May 2010, where the students encountered among other things the rural life in Nymphaio, a village in North Greece. Upon our return, the students delved into the Greek oral literature and folklore material from the village we had visited. These experiences not only taught the students about Greece, they also inspired them to use the knowledge gained and their creativity to produce this play.


Kaliambou, Maria (ed.). Modern Greek at Yale. New Haven: Yale Printing and Publishing Services. Spring 2011.

The idea for this publication came to mind during the fall term 2010 when I gave a creative writing assignment to the students of the advanced level course in “Modern Greek Folktales”. I was astonished by the wealth of ideas, the enormous fantasy, and the diversity of styles in the fairy tales submitted. As the rest of the academic year unfolded it became increasingly evident that we had a broad palette of material to represent the creativity and enthusiasm brought to the study of Modern Greek at all levels. This booklet showcases a selection of individual and collective creative writings, among them fairy tales, poems, and short stories written by students of Modern Greek from all language levels during the spring semester 2011.