Periodical publishing: images, texts and materiality in processes of constructing, performing and (re)claiming the nation in Cold War Greece
Periodical publishing: images, texts and materiality in processes of constructing, performing and (re)claiming the nation in Cold War Greece
Dr Mary Ikoniadou (University of Central Lancashire / BSA, Early Career Fellow), “Periodical publishing: images, texts and materiality in processes of constructing, performing and (re)claiming the nation in Cold War Greece”
Abstract
This presentation looks at the entangled relationship between periodicals, politics and ideas about the nation, with regard to Greece during the Cold War. More specifically, it will discuss the ways that printed matter intervened in the formation, dissemination and performance of a Greek national cultural identity and imaginary in the period. Cold War scholarship has expanded its geopolitical boundaries and methodological approaches to include research that transcends bipolar conceptions of the period — particularly, beyond the East-West (and at times North-South) divides. Cultural production in the period has also been the subject of growing academic interest. However, the role of images and printed matter and, more specifically, the aesthetic, cultural and political agency of periodical publishing, continue to be sidelined topics. Through the analysis of the visuality, intertextuality and materiality of selected publications, I will discuss some of the ways that periodicals challenged official state narratives of nationhood for their readership.
