Greek financial crisis – To Archeio https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Wed, 06 May 2020 11:28:28 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 Intertextuality and/in political jokes https://toarcheio.org/items/intertextuality-and-in-political-jokes/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:40 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/intertextuality-and-in-political-jokes/ Continued]]> The aim of the present study is to explore the interplay between intertextuality and humor in contemporary political jokes. The intertextual allusions included in such texts involve (con)texts projected as ‘shared’ knowledge by joke tellers. However, they may render joke comprehension a demanding task, thus excluding potential joke recipients from the ingroup joke tellers attempt to construct. At the same time, the intertextual presuppositions of political jokes may foster the ideological alignment between joke tellers and joke recipients, as they are based on specific evaluations of sociopolitical affairs, which need to be accepted by recipients wishing to establish coherence. The data examined here comes from a large corpus of the Greek jokes on the current financial crisis.

]]> The Rhetoric of Othering in the Greek Parliament: Representations of the Troika and the Self/Other Dichotomy https://toarcheio.org/items/the-rhetoric-of-othering-in-the-greek-parliament-representations-of-the-troika-and-the-self-other-dichotomy/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:44 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-rhetoric-of-othering-in-the-greek-parliament-representations-of-the-troika-and-the-self-other-dichotomy/ Continued]]> Cornelius Castoriadis (1987: 147) argues that all societies have a central imaginary in order to consider basic questions about their identity. Imaginary specifications provide an answer to these questions, while they assemble, adjust, fabricate and construct a society. In all this, language plays a crucial role. As Castoriadis points out, it is through language that these social imaginary significations become manifest and do their constitutive work. In the spirit of these claims and the assumption that identities are constructed discursively (Tekin 2010: 4), the present article uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate the construction of the identity of the Troika – the common support mechanism for Greece in the wake of its sovereign debt crisis and threat of a disorderly default in 2010 consisting of the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission. The aim is to determine how the different political parties construct the identity of the troika. Since identity necessarily concerns a relation to the Self and the Other, and othering is an important activity in the construction of identity, the paper studies the strategies of othering used in the Greek Parliament by the different political parties across all political affiliations during the parliamentary debate preceding the vote on the second bailout loan on 12 February, 2012. The paper also seeks to identify the social imaginary of Greek society and determine whether it is one of social division and dissimulation or one of unity and accord.

The Rhetoric of Othering in the Greek Parliament: Representations of the Troika and the Self/Other Dichotomy | Request PDF. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299076141_The_Rhetoric_of_Othering_in_the_Greek_Parliament_Representations_of_the_Troika_and_the_SelfOther_Dichotomy [accessed Sep 14 2018].

]]> The ‘Greek Crisis’ through the Cinematic and Photographic Lens: From ‘Weirdness’ and Decay to Social Protest and Civic Responsibility https://toarcheio.org/items/the-greek-crisis-through-the-cinematic-and-photographic-lens-from-weirdness-and-decay-to-social-protest-and-civic-responsibility/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:39 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-greek-crisis-through-the-cinematic-and-photographic-lens-from-weirdness-and-decay-to-social-protest-and-civic-responsibility/ Continued]]> The article explores cinematic and photographic images of the ‘Greek crisis’ in order to show how the visual can render the crisis both visible and invisible, clear and opaque, normalized and contested. Greek new wave cinema, iconic repetitive images of suffering in the center of Athens, and the group of visual artists Depression Era are discussed in this context. I argue that the images in focus articulate the crisis and render it visible. At the same time, however, they challenge one’s expectations of what the crisis is and how normalized it has become. I argue that these images can encourage civic responsibility and a dialogue about freedom and democracy in the current predicament.

]]> “The doctor said i suffer from vitamin € deficiency”: Investigating the multiple social functions of Greek crisis jokes https://toarcheio.org/items/the-doctor-said-i-suffer-from-vitamin-e-deficiency-investigating-the-multiple-social-functions-of-greek-crisis-jokes/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:37 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-doctor-said-i-suffer-from-vitamin-e-deficiency-investigating-the-multiple-social-functions-of-greek-crisis-jokes/ Continued]]> Research on political jokes has more often than not concentrated on their content, which is related to, and interpreted in view of, the sociopolitical events and contexts that have given rise to the jokes investigated each time. The present study intends to suggest that there are other aspects of political joke-telling that could be taken into consideration when exploring its social functions and goals: First, the subgenres employed by speakers to convey their humorous perspectives on political issues; and, second, speakers’ spontaneous comments on the jokes under scrutiny. The variety of subgenres could be related to the diverse ways joke-tellers perceive and encode their everyday problems and political views. Speakers’ spontaneous comments on the content and effects of jokes could reveal why they consider such texts tellable and recyclable, as well as how they evaluate them. The political jokes analyzed here come from a large corpus of humorous material about the current Greek debt crisis and its sociopolitical effects on the Greek society. The analysis reveals the multifunctionality of such jokes: They convey a critical perspective on the current sociopolitical conditions in Greece, strengthen the solidarity bonds among Greek speakers, entertain them, and bolster their morale.

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