Andreas Athanasiades | University of Cyprus (original) (raw)

Articles in Refereed Journals by Andreas Athanasiades

InterAlia 17, 2022

In May 2014 the first ever Gay Pride Parade was held with tremendous success in Cyprus, a society... more In May 2014 the first ever Gay Pride Parade was held with tremendous success in Cyprus, a society that is still by-and-large very conservative. At the same time, in an adjacent street, the powerhouse that is the Greek Orthodox Church, organised a counter-parade comprising of far-right individuals, nuns and priests which, both in terms of numbers and influence, failed spectacularly. This paradox spurred a wave of analyses and examination of the way in which Cypriot society and culture seem to be changing until today, 7 years later, engaged as it would seem in a queering process, as well as on issues such as gay activism and civil partnership. My article analyses the ways in which the Parade’s expressed queer desire and the participants’ performativity starting in 2014, gesture towards a significant socio-political change in Cyprus. This analysis is largely based on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of desire as a machine that generates reality, as I approach the Parade’s “queerness” as an expression of Cypriot society’s polyvalent socio-political manifestations which intentionally include the disenfranchised and provide new answers to questions of belonging. It is ultimately argued that, the way in which performative imagination seems to be able to generate reality, gestures towards a better understanding of the weak points of a dominant structure, becoming thus much more influential than the way in which Michel Foucault understands the notion of “power”. In other words, that the participants’ actions, choices and played-out desires lead to a final, dual performance that is the Parade and the counter-parade on the “stage” that is Cyprus. The Parade’s cultural performativity then, can be read as a site of vital performances, a kind of Bakhtinian carnivalesque that can lead to an understanding of a new socio-political identity which entails hope for the future. Thus, the dynamics of non-heteronormative sexual identities in Cyprus and their political potentials are explored vis-à-vis their capacity to interrogate hegemonic discourses, all of which gestures towards the queering of Cypriot culture.

Performing Identity and Gender in Literature, Theatre and the Visual Arts, 2017

Hanif Kureishi’s work focuses on the shifting and polyvalent manifestations of desire and sexuali... more Hanif Kureishi’s work focuses on the shifting and polyvalent manifestations of desire and sexuality within the social and cultural realms in Britain, opening up spaces in the cultural landscape to include intentionally – the marginalised and politically disenfranchised, while interrogating at the same time hegemonic discourses pertaining to the formation of identities. Such an approach gestures towards a re-evaluation of desire which, in turn, can lead us to re-think identity as a constantly evolving, uncategorised and therefore politically powerful apparatus. After the publication of his memoir, My Ear at His Heart (2004), in which the reader is given insights as to how and why characters in the author’s work were created, it seems that affective terms such as desire and sexuality can indeed be used to re-imagine the ways in which identity is experienced. Such an approach alludes to the complex constitutions of identity/ies apropos aesthetic or political concerns, and to how they can engage in a difficult and complex, yet fruitful relationship, avoiding what can be considered by the mainstream as ‘socio-political abnormalities.’ In that, I put forward that a retrospective re-examination of Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) is imperative, as it can help us understand how an evolutionary model of writing nods towards a sense of identity whose articulation has become distinctly polycultural, even post-racial. Such a revisiting of known texts can offer new insights on debates about identity and nation that transcend solipsistic and exclusivist diasporic matters about ‘myself’ as they gesture towards the aesthetic. Indeed, my chapter invites the reader to conceive contemporary identity in affective terms and consequently as a space that surpasses the solipsism of cultural diversity, racial difference or narrow national exclusivity, thus inviting us to experience identity as a cultural instigator carrying socio-political possibilities

IndiaLogs Vol 2 2015, pp. 55-71, ISSN: 2339-8523, 2015

The present article argues that the processes which seem to have spawned the contemporary generat... more The present article argues that the processes which seem to have spawned the contemporary generation of British jihadists started in 1980s Britain, when Thatcherite practices led to the rise of racism and the suppression of dissident voices, a by-product of which was the disassociation of Muslim immigrants from the host society. The result was that the next generation of immigrants was much more prone to religious violence, attracted as it was towards the-supposedly-stable sense of identity offered by Islamic fundamentalism. The issue of identity of British Muslim immigrants is examined by revisiting Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album (1995), whose narrative representations open up spaces in the British cultural landscape to intentionally include the marginalised and disenfranchised. The hypothesis is that the essentialist choice faced by his characters within the conflictual context generated by the clash of Islamic fundamentalism and sexual liberation is similar to the one diasporic subjects face today. The argument is that the process of thinking about identity in affective terms, based on the theories of the likes of Brian Massumi and Deleuze and Guattari, gestures towards a new way of addressing questions of belonging for diasporic subjects, which can have a profound effect on the perception of issues such as religious fundamentalism and social integration. RESUME La recuperación del islam: la identidad afectiva y el fundamentalismo islámico en la obra de Hanif Kureishi El presente artículo sostiene que los procesos que parecen haber dado origen a la generación contemporánea de yihadistas británicos se iniciaron en la Gran Bretaña de los años ochenta, época en la que las prácticas tatcherianas condujeron al incremento del racismo y a la supresión de las voces disidentes, lo cual dio como resultado la disociación de los inmigrantes musulmanes de la sociedad que los acogió. En consecuencia, la siguiente generación de inmigrantes mostró una mayor propensión a la violencia religiosa y al, presuntamente estable, sentido de identidad que ofrecía el fundamentalismo islámico. El problema de identidad de los inmigrantes musulmanes británicos se examina mediante una nueva revisión de la obra The Black Album de Hanif Kureishi (1995), cuyas representaciones narrativas abren espacios en el ambiente cultural británico para incluir de manera intencional a los marginados y privados de derechos civiles. La hipótesis consiste en que la elección esencialista a la que se enfrentan los

This article is the culmination of thirty years of maternal storytelling and the processes associ... more This article is the culmination of thirty years of maternal storytelling and the processes associated with it, vis-à-vis the formation of individual and collective identities in my divided homeland, focusing on how the flow of haunting, familial memories informed my process of becoming. As a second-generation refugee following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, my mother’s stories became an integral part of my fractured identity through the transmission of trauma and the imaginative re-creation and re-appropriation of the lost space from which I hail. As I dialectally engage with the past, the hypothesis becomes that one can comprehend the complexities of personal, textual and collective identities through navigating familial conduits of remembrance. The realisation is that, in imagining an identity through the gaps of the past-present interaction, there is no buried self that awaits to be unearthed — a realisation which gestures towards a space of infinite possibilities for belonging.

Hanif Kureishi’s work has focused on the shifting and polyvalent manifestations of desire within ... more Hanif Kureishi’s work has focused on the shifting and polyvalent manifestations of desire within a socio-political context during the last decades in Britain. The basic contention of such dynamics is that Kureishi’s work interrogates hegemonic discourse on the formation of identities in Britain, as a means of disrupting ongoing discussions on the notion of the nation. Such issues gesture to the complex constitutions of (predominantly male) identity/ies as well as to the way in which, supposedly conflicting, entities can engage in a difficult and complex, yet fruitful relationship, thus enabling them to avoid what are considered by the mainstream as “social abnormalities”. It is true that in Kureishi’s oeuvre, fathers-sons relationships feature predominantly, as the reader comes across certain very interesting father-figure characters whose
psychological development and importance reflect the relationship of the author and his own father figures in his real life, given that the circumstances of the author’s personal life are –more often than not– tangential with all of the political, social and theoretical parameters with which his work is concerned. Thus, the interaction between Kureishi’s different identities as a person and as a writer proves to be significant as he is read as a cultural instigator and hence, as an influential contributor to contemporary culture, especially in “creating” and “experiencing” a male self.It is the scope of this article then, to provide a general overview of the workings of the imaginary father-figure characters in a selection of Kureishi’s work, juxtaposing them with their real counterparts, mostly found in his memoir, My Ear at His Heart (2004), in an attempt to follow a trajectory of the argument that it is the author’s personal life circumstances that led to the creation of these characters and, conversely, the author’s preoccupation with literary father figures that culminated to the memoir itself. In other words, it is the basic contention of this paper that in this interaction between imagination and reality, Kureishi’s memoir is the culmination of decades of work vis-a-vis constructing a (male) self and a diasporic identity, seen through the
relationship between fathers and sons, both fictional and factual.

This article argues that there are complex connections between imagined and lived experiences of ... more This article argues that there are complex connections between imagined and lived experiences of “Britishness” in Hanif Kureishi’s (re)constructions of the past in his memoir My Ear at His Heart. These connections are inextricably tied to Kureishi’s relationships with the father figures in his life, and as such they can provide interpretive insights into both his work and the process of authorial self-fashioning. The focus of the article is on how Kureishi “imagines” a past, a father, an India and a migratory experience through the writings of his father, and on the way in which these affect his development as author, individual, and British subject. Ultimately, it is suggested this process enables Kureishi to rethink himself, his work, his father and his past, although not without issues and tensions, as all these dimensions collapse into the unreliable domain of memory. Kureishi’s process of identity formation is seen here as an “archaeology of subjectivity”, in the sense that he constructs a self and a persona, in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation.

Chapters in Books by Andreas Athanasiades

Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts, 2020

During the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Imbi Paju’s mother, Aino, along with her sister, Vaike, ... more During the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Imbi Paju’s mother, Aino, along with her sister, Vaike, were sent to a Siberian gulag in 1948, where they spent six years until their release in 1954; from that story, an author was born and a per- son was created. Through storytelling, the traumatic events the two sisters witnessed during that period were transmitted to Aino’s daughter as a child, which were then internalised and surfaced as text in her 2006 memoir, Memories Denied. The present article approaches the psychosocial implications behind the author's memories during the Soviet occupation, which constitutes a personal account of understanding a sense of herself as an author and as a person, and an Estonian collective identity, within a post-Soviet space which is read as a postcolonial space in its right. The hypothesis in exploring identity formation is that not in spite of, but because of the unpredictability and unreliability of an ‘I’ which is informed by past memories through projective fantasy, one can open a space of possibilities, hitherto uncharted, to understand the beginnings, real and fic- tional, of the text and the lives associated with them. The presupposition is that the concept of memory is not merely a passive retrieval from a past life not experienced; rather, I approach the concept of memory here as a complex apparatus which allows the subject to re-imagine the space and time it hails from, infusing imagination into factual autobiographical elements.

Hanif Kureishi’s work focuses on the shifting and polyvalent manifestations of desire and sexuali... more Hanif Kureishi’s work focuses on the shifting and polyvalent
manifestations of desire and sexuality within the social and cultural realms in Britain, opening up spaces in the cultural landscape to include intentionally – the marginalised and politically disenfranchised, while
interrogating at the same time hegemonic discourses pertaining to the
formation of identities. Such an approach gestures towards a re-evaluation of desire which, in turn, can lead us to re-think identity as a constantly evolving, uncategorised and therefore politically powerful apparatus. After the publication of his memoir, My Ear at His Heart (2004), in which the reader is given insights as to how and why characters in the author’s work were created, it seems that affective terms such as desire and sexuality can indeed be used to re-imagine the ways in which identity is experienced. Such an approach alludes to the complex constitutions of identity/ies apropos aesthetic or political concerns, and to how they can engage in a difficult and complex, yet fruitful relationship, avoiding what can be considered by the mainstream as ‘socio-political abnormalities.’ In that, I put forward that a retrospective re-examination of Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) is imperative, as it can help us understand how an evolutionary model of writing nods towards a sense of identity whose articulation has become distinctly polycultural, even post-racial. Such a revisiting of known texts can offer new insights on debates about identity and nation that transcend solipsistic and exclusivist diasporic matters about ‘myself’ as they gesture towards the aesthetic. Indeed, my chapter invites the reader to conceive contemporary identity in affective
terms and consequently as a space that surpasses the solipsism of cultural diversity, racial difference or narrow national exclusivity, thus inviting us to experience identity as a cultural instigator carrying socio-political possibilities

In the 1980s Britain saw the rise of a genre in British cinema which came to be known as the Raj ... more In the 1980s Britain saw the rise of a genre in British cinema which came to be known as the Raj Revival. Filmic adaptations of Anglo-Indian texts depicted the last days of the British Empire in India in a nostalgic fashion, re-envisioning the glorious but long-lost imperial past, in a way concomitant to the political agenda of the Thatcherite era, which advocated a return to Victorian ethos and a resort to military force, aiming at re-establishing the splendour of the Empire through the creation of a national identity based on imperial values. Such a process adhered to the creation of a national rhetoric through visual culture, and ultimately of a national identity based on the colonial past, which, inevitably, resulted in a process of re-translating imperial and colonial values into the present. The ensuing disarray in British society included racial violence, labour upheaval and rise of neo-fascist groups such as the National Front. The most prominent, largely state-funded and commercially successful Raj Revival productions were Gandhi (directed by Richard Attenborough, 1982), Heat and Dust (directed by James Ivory, 1983) and A Passage to India (directed by David Lean, 1984), as well as the television serial The Jewel in the Crown (directed by Christopher Morahan and Jim O’Brien, ITV, 1982). As was the case with British Raj productions, these films and series transcended frontiers as they portrayed a highly appealing and therefore marketable image of the British Raj, appealing to international audiences, especially in the U.S.A without any critical intention. As Higson argues, “the theatricality of the Raj, and the epic sweep of the camera over an equally epic landscape and social class is utterly seductive, destroying all sense of critical distance and restoring the pomp of Englishness felt to be lacking in the present” . Such films effectively profited from the country’s imperial past, while promoting a sense of identity solely based on a seemingly stable, middle-class, heterosexual and white past. The breadth of Raj Revival films’ common characteristics include the setting which is “India” (fictional in its celluloid adaptation), the time of production of the works (the early 1980s), the revival and revision of the imperial past, and an implicit, albeit superficial, sense of criticism of the British Empire. It can be said that the characteristics of Raj films mixed with those of the heritage film genre, which in turn borrowed from the historical film and the costume drama genres. The said Raj Revival productions are examined in this chapter, in order to set the background which, as I will argue, the 2011 film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (directed by John Madden) both comes from and challenges. Each and every film and television series displays a different reshuffling of generic conventions, which leads to different perspectives on the imperial past which is also true for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Indeed, it has to be noted that despite their common characteristics, Raj films were also markedly different from each other, so they should not be examined as a unified cultural phenomenon. Each one explores the colonial experience in a different way and portrays distinct cultural variations, geographically, religiously or even sexually. Having said that, it is not the purpose of this chapter to examine these differences; rather, it will offer a broad review of the aforementioned productions, so as to unravel the implications behind the examination of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which I argue that is the latest addition to the genre after almost 30 years and the exploration of the ways in this addition changes both the nature of the genre and its reception, especially vis-à-vis desire and (non-normative) sexuality, inviting thus a re-visiting of the genre and re-thinking its course, given that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the latest addition to the genre.

Papers by Andreas Athanasiades

Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts

Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2016

Abstract This article argues that there are complex connections between imagined and lived experi... more Abstract This article argues that there are complex connections between imagined and lived experiences of “Britishness” in Hanif Kureishi’s (re)constructions of the past in his memoir My Ear at His Heart. These connections are inextricably tied to Kureishi’s relationships with the father figures in his life, and as such they can provide interpretive insights into both his work and the process of authorial self-fashioning. The focus of the article is on how Kureishi “imagines” a past, a father, an India and a migratory experience through the writings of his father, and on the way in which these affect his development as author, individual, and British subject. Ultimately, it is suggested this process enables Kureishi to rethink himself, his work, his father and his past, although not without issues and tensions, as all these dimensions collapse into the unreliable domain of memory. Kureishi’s process of identity formation is seen here as an “archaeology of subjectivity”, in the sense that he constructs a self and a persona, in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation.

Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 2017

Abstract: This article is the culmination of thirty years of maternal storytelling and the proces... more Abstract: This article is the culmination of thirty years of maternal storytelling and the processes associated with it, vis-à-vis the formation of individual and collective identities in my divided homeland, focusing on how the flow of haunting, familial memories informed my process of becoming. As a second-generation refugee following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, my mother’s stories became an integral part of my fractured identity through the transmission of trauma and the imaginative re-creation and re-appropriation of the lost space from which I hail. As I dialectally engage with the past, the hypothesis becomes that one can comprehend the complexities of personal, textual and collective identities through navigating familial conduits of remembrance. The realisation is that, in imagining an identity through the gaps of the past-present interaction, there is no buried self that awaits to be unearthed — a realisation which gestures towards a space of infinite possibilities...

Indialogs, 2015

InterAlia 17, 2022

Performing Identity and Gender in Literature, Theatre and the Visual Arts, 2017

IndiaLogs Vol 2 2015, pp. 55-71, ISSN: 2339-8523, 2015

Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts, 2020

Hanif Kureishi’s work focuses on the shifting and polyvalent manifestations of desire and sexuali... more Hanif Kureishi’s work focuses on the shifting and polyvalent
manifestations of desire and sexuality within the social and cultural realms in Britain, opening up spaces in the cultural landscape to include intentionally – the marginalised and politically disenfranchised, while
interrogating at the same time hegemonic discourses pertaining to the
formation of identities. Such an approach gestures towards a re-evaluation of desire which, in turn, can lead us to re-think identity as a constantly evolving, uncategorised and therefore politically powerful apparatus. After the publication of his memoir, My Ear at His Heart (2004), in which the reader is given insights as to how and why characters in the author’s work were created, it seems that affective terms such as desire and sexuality can indeed be used to re-imagine the ways in which identity is experienced. Such an approach alludes to the complex constitutions of identity/ies apropos aesthetic or political concerns, and to how they can engage in a difficult and complex, yet fruitful relationship, avoiding what can be considered by the mainstream as ‘socio-political abnormalities.’ In that, I put forward that a retrospective re-examination of Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) is imperative, as it can help us understand how an evolutionary model of writing nods towards a sense of identity whose articulation has become distinctly polycultural, even post-racial. Such a revisiting of known texts can offer new insights on debates about identity and nation that transcend solipsistic and exclusivist diasporic matters about ‘myself’ as they gesture towards the aesthetic. Indeed, my chapter invites the reader to conceive contemporary identity in affective
terms and consequently as a space that surpasses the solipsism of cultural diversity, racial difference or narrow national exclusivity, thus inviting us to experience identity as a cultural instigator carrying socio-political possibilities

Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts

Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2016

Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 2017

Indialogs, 2015