Prof.

Maria Boletsi

Tutorials 2018-2019

CRISIS, ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVES, AND RADICAL IMAGINARIES IN LITERATURE, ART,

AND THEORY: EUROPE AND BEYOND

NB: The theme of this tutorial relates to the topic of the MA course “Crisis Rhetoric and
Alternative Narratives in Literature, Art and Theory: Greece, the Mediterranean and
Beyond” that will be taught as an elective (6 EC) in the first block of the second semester
(February-March 2019). Students may take this tutorial independently or as an extension of
(and supplement to) this course to gain extra EC credits.

When: first semester (Sept. – Dec. 2018) OR second semester (Feb. – March 2019).

Instructor: Maria Boletsi (m.boletsi@uva.nl)

Credits: 6 EC

The term ‘crisis’ dominates current public rhetoric in Europe. Responses to terrorist
attacks, to the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, the Eurozone crisis and the ongoing
refugee crisis, have all forged a sense of perennial crisis. This crisis-framework is palpable
in various developments in the European political landscape: the fear of others, the
popularity of anti-immigrant populist parties, nationalism, the polarization of the European
North and South etc.

In this tutorial we will chart the concept of “crisis” and its functions in contemporary
European contexts. We will approach crisis not as an “a priori” but as a framing that allows
certain narratives of the present and precludes others. What understandings of the present
and of history and what kind of temporality does ‘crisis’ produce? We will particularly
center on attempts to break through the premises of the ‘crisis-rhetoric’ and transpose crisis
into critique and transformation of existing frameworks: modes of speaking, looking, and
acting that give shape to radical imaginaries emerging through contemporary crisis-scapes;
experimentations with counterhegemonic ‘grammars’ that challenge ‘crisis’ as a master
narrative and open up alternative conceptions of subjectivity, agency, and futurity. To that
end, we will turn to literary works, films, public art, but also to the aesthetics of protest and
social movements that seek to turn chronic crisis into a “critical threshold,” allowing us to
think “the otherwise” (Roitman).

Depending on the participants’ interests, we can navigate various crisis-scapes in Europe

(and beyond) through the languages of literature, cinema, cartoons, street art etc. Our
discussions will be guided by readings in cultural and political theory, literary studies,
anthropology, and conceptual history.

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THE CONCEPT OF BARBARISM: FROM MEDEA TO ‘TRUMP THE BARBARIAN’

When: first semester (Sept. – Dec. 2018) OR second semester (Feb – April 2019).

Instructor: Maria Boletsi (m.boletsi@uva.nl)

Credits: 6 EC

This tutorial will probe a foundational concept in Western history: barbarism. Although
barbarism is implicated in one of the most rigid hierarchical oppositions (civilized vs.
barbarian), the shifting functions of the ‘barbarian’ in history reveal the concept’s versatility
and the conflicting narratives in which it is involved. Barbarism has been employed as the
negative outside in a dyadic structure separating a civilized interior from a barbarian
exterior; as the middle term in-between savagery and civilization in evolutionary models; as
a repressed aspect of the civilized psyche; as inextricable from, and concomitant with,
civilization (Benjamin e.a.); and as a term that confuses hierarchical structures and fixed
notions of space (eg., in Deleuze and Guattari). Barbarians have been conceived as a force of
destruction but also as agents of change and regeneration in philosophy and art.

The tutorial will explore the shifting workings of this figure in various contexts since Greek
antiquity with an emphasis on contemporary settings: from Greek historians to recent
cultural and political theory ; from Euripides’ Medea to Conan and to “Trump the
Barbarian”; from Walter Benjamin’s “positive barbarism” to recent art biennials (in Athens,
Istanbul, Ireland) that propose barbarism as an alternative force to existing paradigms; and
from C.P. Cavafy’s poem “Waiting for the barbarians” (1905) to the current rhetoric of
“barbarian invasions” in debates on terrorism and the refugee crisis.

We will also explore the relation of the ‘barbarian’ with related figures of the other (savage,
monster, wild man). Our readings for this tutorial can be tailored based on the interests of
the participants.