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Male/Trans* Feminities in postwar Society and in contemporary LGBTQ+ Imaginary

When: —
Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

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My lecture  is based on my monograph about male homoerotic relationships in post-war Greece, which was published in Greek. This study is mostly based on oral testimonies and archival sources that I have gathered during my research from 2014 to 2022. Nevertheless, this study is not limited to the past but is trying to approach the ways in which the postwar past is articulated with the present. For the analysis of postwar and contemporary male (homo)sexuality my study uses the theoretical tools of queer and feminist theory but it aims at enriching   these theories of the Global North with the Greek indigenous theories and, generally, the theories of Global South.

First of all, in postwar society, the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality did not constitute the hegemonic, popular   everyday perception. Instead of an “homosexual” minority  there was a diffuse homo-sexuality in which many ordinary “normal” men participate. This participation was not limited to one-night sexual contacts  but expanded in relationships of love and passion.

This diffuse masculine postwar homosexuality based its existence  on the figure of adelfi/sissy (lit. sister) i.e. effeminate homosexual  because it was this one that constituted the “black sheep” and on which social stigma was attached. as “The homosexual”, the “non-man”. In this lecture I examine the adelfi as a marginalized social group which the postwar Greek postwar  state persecuted along with the leftist, political dissents. Finally, I examine   the ways in which the past and especially the so-called ancient, obsolete figure of adelfi haunts the contemporary LGBTQ+ and generally Greek present.       

Contact name: Tanya Serisier

Speakers
  • Dr Silvia Posocco
  • Kostas Yannakopoulos —

    Kostas Yannakopoulos studied Law and Byzantine-Modern Greek Literature at the University of Athens. He continued his studies in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) where he completed his PhD thesis in Social Anthropology entitled “Jeux du désir , jeux du pouvoir. Corps, émotions et identité sexuelle au Pirée et à Athènes” (1995).

    He taught as visiting professor in Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), in the University of Stockholm (Department of Ethnology) and in the University of Goteborg (Department of Gender Studies) and he was member of the research group “Altérité , sexualité, santé”, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, (Collège de France, Paris). He is currently Director of the MA Program “Gender, Culture and Society”. He is member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) and of the scientific committee of the “Review of Social Researches” (“Epitheorisi Koinonikon Erevnon”) and of the editorial board of the journal “Historein”. A Review of the Past and Other Stories”. A Review of the Past and Other Stories”.

    His research interests focus on gender, sexuality, health, kinship, feminist and queer theory, the relation between anthropology and psychoanalysis, self- reflexive anthropology and Greek ethnography, the politics of difference and urban space.

    He conducted extensive fieldwork and has published in Greek, French and English on men’s same sexuality and male homosociality, AIDS, same-sex families, politics of lgbt and feminist movement, nationalism and football, gentrification and the management of social/cultural difference(s) in urban space. Since 2014, he is conducting research on male homosexuality in post-war Greece.

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