This conversation is prompted by the appearance of Johanna Hanink’s volume of works by Andreas Karkavitsas (The Archeologist and Selected Sea Stories, Penguin Classics 2021) and the new and expanded edition of Michael Herzfeld’s seminal Ours Once More (first published in 1982, new edition Berghahn Books 2020).

Herzfeld’s work marked a landmark intervention in Modern Greek Studies (among other fields) for its authoritative history and analysis of the role played by folklore in Greek nation building. On the other hand, Andreas Karkavitsas—who himself contributed to the burgeoning study of laografía (Greek folklore studies) drew heavily upon the folkloric tradition in his attempts to project a vision of Hellenism more expansive variegated that being pursued by the Greek state in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

This conversation will touch on the intersections between Greek folklore, literature, archaeology, and nation building, and the significance of these issues today – particularly in the light of this year’s centennial remembrance of the Great Catastrophe.