German Imaginations of Greece and Modern Greek Folklore. Discursive Transformations between Popular and Expert Culture

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Miltos Pechlivanos
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 524829444

The proposed research project is based on the assumption that the German perception of Greece since the 19th century was considerably shaped by a discourse of folklore (Volkstümlichkeit), which had a large-scale impact on both scientific investigation and representation of the country in the German popular culture. The discursive transformations of this imaginary range from the scientific-folkloristic exploration of Greece since the early 19th century to the institutional establishment of Modern Greek Studies at German universities and the country’s folkloristic image in the German popular culture after 1945. The project aims to highlight this discourse as a specific space of mediation and communication in the history of German-Greek entanglements between popular and expert culture and to illuminate its changing functions in the Greek-German knowledge transfer. It will be carried out in two subprojects which explore the discursive field of Modern Greek popular culture from the complementary perspectives of popular and expert culture. The first subproject focuses on the sphere of popular song culture, whose transformations range from the study and dissemination of Modern Greek folk songs to the reception of the "folk composer" Mikis Theodorakis and Greece’s image in the German pop music. The second subproject examines the folkloristic traditions of German Modern Greek Studies as well as the journalistic and popular scientific representation of Greece by means of folkloristic patterns of perception and argumentation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants