In this talk, a number of case-studies from 20th and 21st c. Greece are used in order to describe what the speaker understands as “Greek Archaeopolitics”: that is, the archaeologization of the current political debate in order to dominate it. What this paper argues, is that some modern societies such as Greece (but not just Greece) are distinguished by a collective “love of things ancient”, a sort of communal archaeophilia, which, it would seem, hides a shared drive to live the present through constant archaeologies of the past. This has enabled a series of systematic deployments of politics over life – a bios that presents itself as an anabiosis more often than not (or than it should). Archaeopolitical discourse, it will be argued, redeploys the management of life and living as an archaeolatric ritual often taken to its extreme – even if this means a politics of social and political exclusion and ostracization, or – if it comes to that – death and dying.

Organiser:
Evert van Emde Boas
Email: evert.vanemdeboas@cas.au.dk

Location:
Antikmuseet

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