Basile. “Growing Up Greek in America: Comedy Greek Style.” SpiceRaque Entertainment & BZK Productions. BZK Productions, 1999.
“Greek [American] Gods of Comedy.”
Exclusive Tell All Interview with Mr. Panos Youtube interview with comedian Yannis Pappas.
Aravossitas, Themistoklis. The Hidden Schools: Mapping Greek Heritage Language Education in Canada, University of Toronto, 2016.
Since the languages of immigrant communities in Canada are categorized as “non-official”, our government is under no obligation to contribute to the perpetuation of these languages. Furthermore, education, in general, is a provincial responsibility. Thus, no formal reporting and documentation of Heritage/International Language Programs takes place at the national level. Given this situation, the various ethnic community groups are left alone with the task of protecting their valuable linguistic and cultural heritages. Inevitably, without national information sharing or support from the Canadian government, HL policy and programming are in a precarious state. My study involves my participation in a community-based research project that aims to locate, map, assess and develop the Greek HLE resources in Canada. Theoretically based on the concepts of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Language Maintenance, my investigation (a) addresses the question of access to Greek language and culture education by exploring the programs and resources currently available to HL learners; (b) formulates an asset-based model to analyze the capacity of the Greek community’s HLE system and proposes changes for its upgrade; and (c) develops a database to allow community members, HLE stakeholders and researchers to search for information about Greek language schools, community organizations and cultural events across Canada. Overall, this investigation addresses the retention and development of Canada’s cultural and linguistic resources through HLE. My findings demonstrate that for Heritage Languages to be maintained in Canada beyond the third generation, communities need to assume responsibility and foster three necessary conditions for educational success in the 21st century: access, innovation and motivation. As a starting point, I suggest locating, sharing and developing HLE assets through collaborations with stakeholders, including universities, governments, interested professionals and funding agencies. This study not only brings into prominence Greek HLE in Canada, but also underscores the passion and determination of immigrant communities to fully participate in mainstream society without diminishing their cultural and linguistic capital.
Beck, Ann. Greek Immigration to, and Settlement in, Central Illinois, 1880-1930. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014. [available here]
This dissertation is a micro-history of Greeks immigrants to central Illinois between 1880 and 1930. The study focuses specifically on those Greek immigrants who were involved in the confectionery trade, opening candy stores (often accompanied by soda fountains and restaurants) in the small towns and cities of rural Illinois. The study draws upon, as its primary case study, the life and experiences of my own grandfather, Constantin “Gus” Flesor, a Greek immigrant who settled in Tuscola, Illinois in 1901 and owned a candy store/soda fountain business there for 75 years. In all, this dissertation tells the stories of more than 160 such Greek immigrant confectioners in more than forty towns and cities in central Illinois. Examples from the lives of my grandfather and these other first-generation Greek immigrants are interwoven throughout the dissertation to illustrate particular experiences. The dissertation begins with a discussion of migration theory, which seeks to locate the first-generation Greek immigrant experience in rural areas within the larger theoretical debate that has primarily focused on the urban immigrant experience. Chapter Two provides a geographical and historical background by briefly reviewing relevant features of Greek geography, particularly that of the Peloponnese region from where most of the immigrants in this study originated. This chapter also contains a short history of Greece that helps to frame the important question of Greek heritage and identity. Chapter Three presents an overview of first-generation Greek immigration to America, focusing particularly on immigration to Chicago and St. Louis, the primary cities that served as transit points for Greeks coming to central Illinois. Chapter Four explores education and the Greek immigrant, and specifically how Greek immigrants learned the confectionery business. Chapter Five addresses the question of Greek identity, anti- immigrant hostility during this period, especially the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, and how Greek immigrants in these small towns responded to this prejudice and bigotry. Finally, Chapter Six looks at the lives and businesses of the individual Greek immigrants to central Illinois. In my conclusion I address the questions raised by this study and possible avenues for further research.
Bringerud, Lydia. “Whose Tradition?: Adapting Orthodox Christianity in North America”. PhD diss. Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), 2019.
Focusing on three Orthodox Christian communities – St. Paraskeva and St. Luke in Midwestern US, and St. Nicolas in Atlantic Canada – this thesis examines the complex cultural dynamics surrounding Orthodox Christianity in North America. I explore the ways believers, both the Orthodox-born and new converts, negotiate with an ancient faith in a contemporary society where this faith may appear counter-cultural. Building on Leonard Primiano’s (1995) theory of vernacular religion, I propose the concept of vernacular theology to shed light on these processes. Despite the illusion of theology as the exclusive purview of clergy, laypeople exercise interpretive agency to creatively adapt doctrine to their individual life circumstances.
Considering the significant role of Church history in the religious choices and experiences of my consultants, I begin with a historical overview of Orthodox Christianity, from its origins in the Roman Empire to the present day, including its path to North America. The themes of empire, romantic nationalism, anti-Westernism, and Communism that have historically shaped this faith are explored specifically in Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine, the home countries of my Orthodox-born participants. I analyze the Orthodox Church’s response to globalization and how this may affect the future of the Church in North America.
I further consider encounters between converts and Orthodox-born immigrants within the walls of North American Orthodox churches, examining how Orthodox Christian communities meet the needs of these different groups. I argue that those who convert to Orthodox Christianity create exoteric folklore about ethnicity in terms of those who have cultural connections with the faith.
In my last two chapters, I address theory and practice in the lives of Orthodox Christians, with specific emphasis on how women navigate this patriarchal faith in a society in dialogue with feminist ideas. Themes include understandings of clerical authority, spiritual obedience, and the interpretive agency of parishioners. I offer a theory of vernacular feminisms, in which women create strategies of empowerment within a patriarchal system. By creating these choices for themselves, they simultaneously subvert and support a system that limits them on the basis of gender.
Diamanti-Karanou, Panagoula, The Relationship between Homeland and Diaspora: The Case of Greece and the Greek-American. PhD diss. Boston: Northeast University, 2015.
In an increasingly global world, diasporas are unique actors since they represent a fusion of the cultures, interests and mentalities of their old and new homelands. Thus, the relationship between homelands and diasporas becomes quite significant. Nevertheless, it remains understudied. This dissertation attempts to contribute to the study of this phenomenon through an in-depth examination of the relationship between Greece and the Greek diaspora in the United States. The Greek state and the Greek-American community are interdependent on each other. The state relies on the community for assistance in the areas of development, economic cooperation, humanitarian aid, and advocacy for foreign policy issues. The community relies on the Greek state for support with respect to Greek education and the preservation of Greek culture in the United States. The relationship between the two entities reflects the dynamics of a partnership although the state has tried in the past to extend its control over the Greek-American community. However, the community has proved its independence vis-à-vis the Greek state. In order to have a more fruitful partnership in the future, a number of conditions should be in place, including a systematic and well-planned diaspora policy on the part of the Greek state and better organized structures on the part of the Greek-American community. Moreover, a better and deeper knowledge and appreciation of each other is very important for any further cooperation: the Greek state needs to get to know the spectrum of Greek identity and culture that exists in the Greek-American community while the Greek-Americans need to have a deeper knowledge of Greece and Greek culture. The Greek-American diaspora can have a significant role as an agent of positive change and it can be a unique bridge between the two nations enriching them both at the same time.
Eleftheriou, Joanna, This Way Back: Essays from Cyprus. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Missouri, Columbia, 2015.
This Way Back is a creative dissertation that explores the predicament of the transmigrant, the immigrant who has the capability of returning to the host country, and gets caught in an in-between space, not quite assimilated, and not quite unchanged. Transmigrant subjectivities coincide with globalized financial markets, and with twenty-first century forms of national allegiance. The text calls several binaries into question: Greek/Turk, Greek/Cypriot, Greek/American, gay/straight, male/female, ancient/modern, critical/creative writing, and, through its form, essay collection/memoir. The critical introduction, “Essay, Memoir, or Both? Hunger of Memory and the Problem of Nonfiction Hybrids” addresses this binary, and suggests that reading Hunger of Memory as a memoir animated by essayism makes possible a reconciliation of contradictions that have puzzled Rodriguez scholars in the past. The main, creative component of the dissertation relates stories from the authors life as a New-York-born Greek-speaking citizen of Cyprus: dancing to re-enact a mass suicide by jumping off a school stage onto gym mats, harvesting carobs on her great-grandfathers land, purchasing UNESCO-protected lace, traveling against her father’s wishes to the islands occupied north, and pruning cypress trees, geraniums, and jasmine after he grew too weak to lift the shears. Narrating these stories allows her to investigate questions of voluntary and forced migration, nationhood, and war. Political events such as the 1959 guerilla war against British rule, and the 1974 partition of the island, are conveyed through the stories of Cypriot people, the islands refugees and its returnees, among them the authors late father. Together, the essays are a memorial, one which embodies the links between political and personal loss; the individual and the environment; the living and the dead.
Gatzouras, Vicky J. Family Matters in Greek American Literature. Diss. Blekinge Institute of Technology and Göteborg University, 2007.
Gerontakis, Steven. AHEPA vs. the KKK: Greek-Americans on the Path to Whiteness. Senior Thesis. University of North Carolina at Asheville, North Carolina, 2012.
Gizelis, Gregory. Narrative Rhetorical Devices of Persuasion in the Greek Community of Philadelphia. Ph.D. diss. University of Pennsylvania, 1972.
Grafos, Chris. Canada’s Greek Moment: Transnational Politics, Activists, and Spies during the Long Sixties, Ph.D. diss. York University (Canada), 2016.
This dissertation examines Greek immigrant homeland politics during the period of Greeces military dictatorship, 1967 to 1974, in Toronto and Montreal. It carefully considers the internal dynamics of anti-junta activism in Canadas Greek populations, but it also contemplates the meanings of external perceptions, particularly from the Canadian state and Canadian public discourse. The study acknowledges the dominant paradigm of Greek immigrants as unskilled workers, however, it demonstrates that this archetype is not monolithic. In many ways, it is challenged by a small number of Greeks who possessed skills to write letters to politicians, create petitions, organize public rallies, and politically mobilize others. At the same time, this dissertation carefully considers Canadas social and political environment and shows how uniquely Canadian politics ran parallel to and informed Greek homeland politics. Transnationalism is used as an analytical tool, which challenges the meaning of local/national borders and the perception that they are sealed containers. The main argument expressed here is that environments shape movements and migrant political culture does not develop in a vacuum. Each chapter deals with specific nuances of anti-junta activism in Toronto and Montreal. Chapter One examines the organized voices of the Greek community’s anti-dictatorship movement. The chapters latter section looks at how the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), led by Andreas Papandreou, consolidated itself as the main mouthpiece against Greece’s authoritarian regime. Chapter Two demonstrates that social movements occurring in Canada meshed neatly with anti-junta sentiment, mobilizing many Canadians against the dictatorship. Chapter Three shows how a few skilled Greeks shaped transnational narratives of resistance in local Greek leftist press. Chapters Four and Five examine RCMP surveillance documents related to local politics in Toronto and Montreal. In doing so, the chapters reveal that regional circumstances, particularly Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, shaped security concerns and definitions of Greek subversive activities. Overall, Canadas Greek moment was a complex tale of activism, surveillance, and transnational politics.
Kappatos, Nicole. Greek Immigration to Richmond, Virginia, and the Southern Variant Theory. M.A. Thesis. Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3483, 2014.
“Greek immigration to the United States occurred in two distinctive waves: the first wave from the 1890s-1920s and the second wave from the 1960s-1980s. This thesis explores the regional diversity of the Greek immigrant experience in the Southern United States through the case study of the Greek community in Richmond, Virginia. The first chapter introduces the history of Greek immigration to the United States, discusses major scholars of Greek American studies, and explains the Southern Variant theory. Chapter two examines the experiences of the first wave of Greek immigrants in Richmond. The third chapter incorporates oral history to explain the experiences of second wave Greek immigrants in Richmond. Chapters two and three examine factors including language, church activity, intermarriage, and community involvement, in order to demonstrate a Southern Variation in the experiences of Greek immigrants in Richmond in comparison to their counterparts elsewhere in the United States.”
Karpathakis Anna. Sojourners and Settlers, Greek Immigrants of Astoria, New York. Ph.D. diss. Columbia University, 1993
Καρπόζηλος Κωστής. Ελληνοαμερικανοί Εργάτες, Κομμουνιστικό Κίνημα και Συνδικάτα (1900-1950): Αναζητώντας τον Εργατικό Εξαμερικανισμό στα Χρόνια της Μεγάλης Υφεσης. Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης: Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας. Ρέθυμνο, 2010.
Katradis, Maria. “Teachers’, students’, and parents’ beliefs about language learning in two modern greek language programs.” PhD diss. George Mason University, 2016.
This study explores teachers’, students’, and parents’ beliefs about language learning in two Modern Greek language programs at the elementary school level in the United States using a phenomenological embedded multiple case study approach. Participant beliefs were identified through a survey which included adapted teacher, student, and parent versions of the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (Horwitz, 1988) and adapted subscales related to children’s ability/expectancies, task value, and task perceptions (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995). Student and parent beliefs and lived experiences were further explored using in-depth individual interviews. Results indicate that the students’ beliefs about language learning and specifically about learning Greek were more positive than those of their respective teacher and parents, despite holding some counterproductive or contradictory beliefs about language learning. Their interviews illustrated their negotiations between classroom and home environments and support for learning Greek.
The parent interviews brought to light that their beliefs were formed from their own experiences with language learning and prior experiences with learning Greek. Across these programs, two distinct conceptualizations for Modern Greek language learning are presented. Educational implications include: addressing goals and expectations; impact of beliefs on program models; students’ contradictory beliefs; assessment of language learning; long-term expectations of Greek language learning; conceptualizations of the roles of identity, culture, and language; and diverging cultures and conceptualizations of Greek language learning.
Kindinger, Evangelia. “Homebound: Diaspora Spaces and Selves in Greek American Return Narratives.” Diss. Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany), 2012.
Kyrou, Alexandros K. “Greek Nationalism and Diaspora Politics in America, 1940-1945: Background Analysis of Ethnic Responses to Wartime Crisis.” Diss. Indiana University, 1993.
League, Panayotis. Echoes of the Great Catastrophe: Re-Sounding Anatolian Greekness in Diaspora. Doctoral dissertation. Harvard University, 2017.
This dissertation focuses on the music and dance practices of Greek refugee and migrant families from the historical region of Aeolia or Western Anatolia (the Aegean coast of present-day Turkey and the island of Lesvos), including those who settled in the Boston area following the end of the Greco-Turkish War in 1922. Shortly after the end of the conflict, a population exchange between the two states resulted in the deportation of nearly 2 million Greek Orthodox Christians from Turkey – an event known to Greeks as the “Great Catastrophe.” Drawing on five years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Anatolian Greek communities of greater Boston and the island of Lesvos and a wealth of never-before examined archival material, this study examines the multitude of ways that Anatolian Greeks in diaspora have used musically-framed material culture to narrate their community’s intergenerational story of displacement and adaptation and enable the preservation and transmission of repertoire, style, and both musical and social memory. Each chapter of this dissertation focuses on a distinct yet overlapping sphere of sensually-rich, performative relationships with material objects and bodily practices in Anatolian Greek music and dance. These include handwritten musical transcriptions from the early 1900s; commercial recordings, from 78 rpm records and piano rolls to compact discs; homemade reel-to-reel tape, cassette, and video recordings; the gendered performance of social dance; legacies of sonic and physical violence; and the role of commensal foodways in theorizing musical time. Drawing on the Greek concepts of myth and mimesis, I highlight the performative agency embedded in these objects and practices. In the process, I reveal that, beyond mere archives or venues of musical and social activity, they are sonic and material sites of emotional valence, nodes for the face-to-face mediation of personal and musical relations, and a means of engaging the body to craft a polytemporal sense of self. These musical archives and actions enter into a pluralistic dialogue with other human and non-human agents to reveal past musical practices, shape contemporary ones, produce ideas and memories about the musicians who made and used them, and contribute to an inherently relational model of Anatolian Greek personhood.
Lillios, Emmanuel N. The Relationship Between Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help, Religious Orientation, and Greek Orthodox Religiosity. Diss. University of Iowa, 2010.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the relationship that attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help have with religiosity and religious orientation among members of the Greek Orthodox Christian Church in the United States. In addition, this study also investigated the nature of the relationship that confessional involvement has with the following variables: intrinsic religious orientation, extrinsic religious orientation, religiosity, attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, and ethnic background. This is important because Greek Americans, for reasons perhaps related to culture and religion, have historically displayed a reticence to seek professional psychological help when there are psychological problems. There is a paucity of research on the role religiosity and religious orientation has on seeking professional help for mental health problems. Taking a sample from the members of an urban, large-sized Greek Orthodox parish, participants will complete a questionnaire consisting of demographic data, the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help scale (ATSPPH) short form-revised (Fischer & Farina, 1995); the New Indices of Religious Orientation scale (NIRO) short form (Francis, 2007); and the Christian Orthodox Religiousness Scale (CORS) (Chliaoutakis et al., 2002). The results will be analyzed to provide information useful in understanding the relationship between religiosity, religious orientation and attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among members of the Greek Orthodox Church. Implications of these findings and suggestions for further research will be discussed.
Louvarsi, Elenie. «Δύναμη καı Παράδoση» Strength and Tradition: History and Memory of the Greek Genocide in Turkey and its Impact on Culture and Heritage in the United States. University of Colorado at Denver, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2018.
From 1913-1924 the ethnic-Greeks of Asia Minor were the victims of genocide perpetrated first by agents of the failing Ottoman State, the rise of the Young Turks an finally Mustafa Kemal’s Turkish Republic. This study analyzes the actions and effects of the Turks in three sections. The first chapter defines genocide and ethnic cleansing, and gives a historiography of nationalism, the Greek Genocide and includes a brief historical context. The Second chapter contextualizes the atrocities committed in Asia Minor. This is done by first presenting how nationalism transformed the Balkan Peninsula, and then showing how the Turks systematically dismantled Greek communities in Turkey through attacks. Using survivor testimonies from Nicomedia I show that these attacks were committed against the Greek Orthodox Church, clergy as well as women and children purposefully. Further, I endeavor to show that all of these actions were committed against Greeks in an effort to destroy their sense of identity, to sever community ties, and ultimately to remove them from Turkey. In the third and final chapter, I show how despite their efforts, the descendants of the victims of genocide have, in the United States, established institutions, societies, and organizations to perpetuate and preserve the unique culture and identity that the Turks tried so hard to destroy.
Mavratsas, Caesar, V. Ethnic Entrepreneurialism, Social Mobility, and Embourgeoisement. The Formation and Intergenerational Evolution of Greek-American Economic Culture. Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University, 1993.
Morrow, Eric V. Transnational Religion in Greek American Political Advocacy. Diss. Baylor University, 2012. (available online)
“Contemporary studies of transnationalism are challenging scholarship on the political advocacy of ethnic groups by examining a broader range of connections that shape immigrant identity and engagement with the political systems of host countries. One of these connections is the role religion has in forming new ethnoreligious identities and how this role is influenced by transnational relationships with countries of origin and external religious institutions. In many analyses of ‘ethnic politics,’ religion is either excluded or viewed as a cultural element closely aligned with ethnic identity. This has obscured the significant influence of religious affiliation and religious institutions in the political advocacy of immigrant groups. This dissertation examines the role of religion in Greek American advocacy and analyzes the transnational elements that have shaped Greek American identity and contributed to the engagement with the United States government on specific foreign policy issues. From a basis in theories of diaspora nationalism and transnationalism and within the larger context of Greek American advocacy, focus is placed on the development of the role of the Greek Orthodox Church in America in defining a unique ethno-religious identity and in direct engagement with U.S. policymakers on the issues of the invasion and partition of Cyprus, the Macedonian Question, and the legal status and religious freedom of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, Turkey. Following a survey of the role of the Church and its leadership in advocacy on these issues, this dissertation analyzes the elements of transnational religion in the Greek American experience in order to develop a methodology for approaching other groups in the United States. With the increase of immigrant religious affiliation and institutions in America and the diversity of engagement in both domestic and foreign policy issues, the analysis of transnational religious connections is critical to understanding identity formation and ethnoreligious lobbying, as well as gauging the impact of this advocacy on the U.S. political system.”
Μανδατζής, Χρ. Υπερπόντια μετανάστευση από τη Μακεδονία: 1923-1936. Διδακτορική Διατριβή, Τμήμα Ιστορίας-Αρχαιολογίας, ΑΠΘ, 2000.
Nazos, Maria. Pulse and the Slow Horizon that Breathes: Two Collections of Poetry and Critical Introduction. The University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2018.
This dissertation contains two collections of poetry, one of my own entitled “Pulse,” and one of translations, from the Greek, of the poet Dimitra Kotoula. Both collections, as examined in the introduction, deal with the concrete and metaphorical concept of crossing boundaries. More concretely, throughout these poems, translations, and critical introduction, the narrator is constantly testing her own capacity for hard living, love, and travel. Whereas the translations’ boundary-crossing primarily entails the concept of survival during a major fiscal crisis, the poems’ boundary-crossing primarily entails acts of self-destruction, feelings of discomfort, and ultimate self-resurrection. Both genres, however, both involve the speaker and the actual author crossing into unknown and uncomfortable geographical territories, including Greece, Belize, and Guatemala. No matter what, though, the speaker and the author manage to claw their way out of worldly and self-made destruction and learn to be in the dark until they can actually see in the dark. Resiliency is the thematic core of these collections and introduction, because ultimately, these works seek to interrogate how not only the speaker, but humanity as a whole, are able to live, love, and breathe despite the larger and local sufferings which occur, including war, mass shootings, and death.
Nicolaidis, Maria George. Aspects of Greek-American Ethnic Identity: An Intergenerational Study of Greek Americans. Thesis (Ed.D.) Teachers College, Columbia University, 1989.
Panagakos, Anastasia. Romancing the Homeland: Transnational Lifestyles and Gender in the Greek Diaspora. Diss. University of California (Santa Barbara), 2003.
Patrona, Theodora. Novels of Return: Ethnic Spaces in Contemporary Greek-American and Italian American Literature. Diss. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University, 2011.
The present thesis is a comparative approach to six Italian-American and Greek-American literary works written in the last three decades of the 20th century. Based on the common theme of the authors’ return, either metaphorical or literal to the two countries of origin and their respective cultures, this doctoral thesis explores the common motifs of mythology, ritual and storytelling where the heroes and heroines resort to in their quest for self-definition. In specific, my analysis attempts to answer two questions: how is the journey to self-definition, as well as the formation of subjectivity, connected with the recourse to ethnic space in each of the novels examined? In addition, to what extent are these two elements affected by the constantly changing framework of social, historical and economic conditions, covering two decades? Within the context of the seventies, I discuss Daphne Athas’s Cora (1978) and Helen Barolini’s Umbertina (1979), whose heroines, caught under the spell of feminist and psychoanalytic trends of their times, realize the importance of ethnic space in their journey towards self-definition. Assisted by diverse theories, I argue that though differently approached, in the end for both novels ethnic space is proven to be a site of resilience and inspiration. Moreover, in the so-called era of post-feminism, Catherine Temma Davidson’s The Priest Fainted (1998) and Susan Caperna Lloyd’s No Pictures in My Grave (1992) portray heroines who seek enlightenment and guidance by returning to the home country and its culture. In both cases, I consider the theoretical arsenal of revisionist myth making and the late-capitalist dictates reflected, and I argue that the two heroines are carriers of a similar “haughty” air of Orientalism. I conclude that since they opt for a “selective” ethnicity, they oversimplify and disorient readers as to the importance and difficulty of the ethnic female quest. Finally, utilizing two novels written by male authors, Stratis Haviaras When The Tree Sings (1979) and Tony Ardizzone’s In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu (1999), I break away from the exclusive attention to a feminist approach, and view the conceptualization of ethnic space as this is unraveled by the powerful narrative mode of storytelling. Thus, I argue that overcoming the twenty years that separate them, both novels come to underwrite the surviving powers of the oral narrative, project the ethnic story as “alternative” history, and portray the diachronic character of ethnic space as a site of rebelliousness and anti- conformism.
Piperoglou, Andonis. Greek Settlers: Race, Labour, and the Making of White Australia, 1890s-1920s. Doctoral Dissertation, La Trobe University, Victoria Australia.
Psarris Thomas Α. Από τη διασπορά στη «diaspora»: ο ελληνισμός της Αμερικής και ο ρόλος του στη διαμόρφωση της αμερικανικής εξωτερικής πολιτικής από το 1975 μέχρι σήμερα. [From the Greek word ‘Διασπορά’ to ‘Diaspora’: The Greeks Living in America and Their Role in the Formation of the American Foreign Policy from 1975 till the Present Day]. , Master’s thesis Pandeion University, 2015.
The purpose of this paper is to show the contribution of the Greeks living in America in the formation of the American foreign policy as far as the Greek issues after 1975 are concerned. Furthermore, it aims at highlighting whether the foreign policy of America will continue to be influenced in the future since a variety of factors that have to do with the Americans of Greek descent have manipulated its action and suspended its course.
Roth, Michelle L. Greek Diners: How Greeks have Kept Traditional and Americanized Greek Foodways Alive in American Diners. Thesis, Master of Arts (Anthropology). George Mason University, 2014.
Saravanos, Alexandra Christine. Attitudes of Greek and American People toward Individuals who Stutter: A Comparative Study. Thesis (Ed.D.) Teachers College, Columbia University, 2013.
Sokoll, Aaron Josef. “We’re Not Ethnic”: Ethnicity, Pluralism, and Identity in Orthodox Christian America. University of California, Santa Barbara, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2018.
This work examines the Evangelical Orthodox Church—a group of evangelical Protestant Christians who, from the 1960s to the 1980s, developed their own ecclesial movement in an effort to restore in the modern world the original Christian church as they believed it would have existed in the first centuries of the current era among the followers of Jesus. They eventually converted as a group of roughly 2,000 members and 19 parishes to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in 1987. To understand the conversion event, the present study examines the interconnections of the theological and cultural changes that brought the group to convert. Understanding the group’s conversion from evangelical Protestant to Orthodox Christian reckons with the issues of religious adaptation in modern society. Adaptation occurs in the spiritual marketplace, which arises from and functions within the plurality of religious choices available in the U.S. In the spiritual marketplace, consumers of spiritual ideas not only choose between religious traditions, but also mix.
Given the divisions of Eastern Orthodox communities in the U.S. along ethnic lines, I show that the EOC members, who as white evangelical Americans were normally unaware of their ethnic identities and customs, were forced to reckon with their ethnic Identities while they negotiated this theological shift. Many works exist to address the issues of ethnicity and religion in the U.S. The ones that inform this study most significantly consider the construction of whiteness in the U.S. This racialized concept gets to the heart of the issues in this study because it explains the attempts on the part of both EOC members and certain Orthodox leaders to form a culture-free religion. As we will see, EOC members and archdiocesan leaders both bemoaned the connection many Orthodox Christians felt and still feel with their parishes through ethnicity. The EOC and the archdiocese viewed such connections as inauthentic and impure compared to the spiritual, doctrinal truths of Orthodoxy, which they asserted as the proper bases of connection. At the same time, the EOC and the archdioceses advocated the development of an American expression of Orthodoxy, which they predicated on a rejection of ethnicity.
Soumakis, Fevronia K. A Sacred Paideia: The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, Immigration, and Education in New York City, 1959–1979. Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2015.
This dissertation examines the role the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America played in shaping Greek education in New York City during the period 1959-1979. Beginning in 1959, when Archbishop Iakovos was appointed as the fourth Archbishop by the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Archdiocese focused its attention on expanding and modernizing educational institutions. The Archbishop advocated for a “resurrection of a Greek Orthodox consciousness” in education that would instill knowledge of the Greek language, as well as the historical, cultural, and religious legacy of the Greek Orthodox nation. As parish communities in New York City and the new wave of Greek immigrants heeded the call to build and expand parochial schools over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the Archdiocese’s Department of Education also sought to modernize its curriculum and books, in addition to the challenging task of upgrading the teacher training program at St. Basil’s Academy. Modernization, however, did not entail assimilation and a diminishing of Hellenism, but a renewal of a Hellenic Orthodox identity within a religiously and ethnically pluralistic society. In part, several factors influenced the educational agenda of the Archdiocese: the historical position of the Church in relation to education, the needs of the new immigrants within the broader context of Greek Americans in the US, and the politics of Greece in relation to Cyprus and Turkey. This study ends in 1979 when shifts in demographics, declining enrollments, and competition with public schools compelled the Archdiocese and parish communities to reassess the future of their educational programs. This work weaves the Greek American immigrant experience into the broader narrative of immigration to New York in the post-1965 period. A more complex and dynamic portrait of Greek American education in New York emerges as well as the central role played by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. The insights from this work contribute the Greek American educational experience to the larger body of scholarship on the history of education in the United States.
Stamatis, Yona. Rebetiko Nation: Hearing Pavlos Vassiliou’s Alternative Greekness Through Rebetiko Song. Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan. 2011
Stavrianidis, Panos. The Intergenerational Integration of Immigrants in the American Society: A Quantitative Study of Attitudes and Behaviors in the Greek American Community of New Jersey. Diss. Panteion University Athens, Greece, 2012.
“This exploratory study examined the extent to which a population of Greek Americans hold attitudes and behaviors for the conservation and intergenerational transmission of their ethnic culture. In particular, six core value domains were considered for their impact on the preservation of ethnic identity: the Greek language, Greek Orthodox Church, family cultural orientation and values, Greek cultural activities and organization membership, continuing contact with Greece and/or Cyprus, and political activity. Data was obtained through a questionnaire administered to 229 self-identified Greek Americans in 11 parishes of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey. The collected data was analyzed quantitatively and the differences in behaviors and attitudes among the first, second, and third and beyond generations were statistically compared. At least four patterns of intergenerational changes emerged. The first pattern was observed within the Greek language domain and demonstrated the steady diminishment of this as a core value from one generation to the next. The second pattern was observed for the domains of the Greek Orthodox Church and Greek cultural activities; here, the core values reflected the least degree of reduction in the subject population. The third pattern was observed mostly in behavior rather than in expressions of attitude regarding the domains of family cultural orientation and values and continuing contact with Greece and/or Cyprus. These domains reflected more similarities exist between the first and second generations while a significant deviation was seen for the third and beyond generational cohort. The fourth pattern was observed in the core values of organization membership and political activity which showed similar responses for the second and third and beyond generational groups, and greater distance from the results for the first generation.”
Tchaconas, Terry Nickolas. Oral Reading Strategies in Greek and English of Second Grade Bilingual Children and their Relationships to Field-Dependence and Field-Independence. Thesis (Ed. D.) Teachers College, Columbia University, 1985.
Tsiartsionis Karapanagiotis, Fay. “Greek-American Couples: Examining Acculturation, Egalitarianism and Intimacy.” Diss. Drexel University, 2008.
Tzortzinis, Christina. Expressions of Greek America. Honors Thesis under the guidelines of the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and Arts, 2011.
Expressions of Greek America is a multilayered study about key moments in foreign policy when Greek and United States interests came into opposition, challenging the place of Greek Americans in U.S. society while also inspiring lasting community-building efforts. My thesis charts Greek American reactions to events abroad through the Junta government 1967-74, the Cyprus crisis of 1974-75, and the more recent community outcry over the Macedonia naming issue. I argue that the significance of Greek identity in the diaspora is not a tenuous connection to static, distant heritage, but a continuing interaction in which changing homelands and diasporic communities influence each other in meaningful ways.
Κουρτούμη-Χαντζή, T. N. Η ελληνική μετανάστευση προς τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες και η πολιτική της Ελλάδας (1890-1924). Διδακτορική Διατριβή, Τμήμα Ιστορίας-Αρχαιολογίας, ΑΠΘ, 1999.
Varlamos, Michael. A Quest for Human Rights and Civil Rights: Archbishop Iakovos and the Greek Orthodox Church. Wayne State University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2018.
This dissertation consists of a biography of Archbishop Iakovos, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America from 1959 to 1996, and the role he played in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, his continuing advocacy for human rights, and his vision for a humanistically Greek, theologically Orthodox Christian, and socially just society. The fundamental research question that I sought to answer was why Archbishop Iakovos went to Selma in March of 1965 and participated in a memorial service/civil rights demonstration. What were the influences and circumstances that prompted him, a religious leader of an almost exclusively white ethnic church, to join the African American civil rights movement in the 1960s and to continue to advocate for human rights until his demise in April 2005? How did Iakovos’s identity as a Greek émigré from Turkey, an immigrant to America, and later a United States citizen evolve, and how did he seek to transform the identity of Greek Americans to accomplish his goal of social justice for society?
I argue that the four foundational influences dialectically interacted with Archbishop Iakovos’s evolving identity from émigré to immigrant to United States citizen to citizen of the world, which prompted his civil and human rights activism and contributed to his ultimate vision of a socially just society and world. These four influences were his conviction to the classical Greek ideals of freedom, reason, the pursuit of truth, justice, and equality, his Orthodox Christian belief in the inherent, divinely bestowed dignity that each human being possesses, the history of an oppressed Greek people and discriminated Greek American immigrants, and his personal experience of bigotry and religious persecution growing up in Turkey.
Vournelis, Leonidas V. Living the Crisis: Identities and Materialities in a Transnational Greek Setting. Diss. Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2012.
Zaharopoulos, Helen (Eleni). Greek American Identity Under Historical, Social, and Literary Transformation. Honors Thesis completed under the guidelines of the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and Arts, Winter 2011.
Greek American Identity Under Historical, Social, and Literary Transformation encompasses three generations of Greeks in Michigan and analyzes Greek identity within and through these generations. I used Yiorgos Anagnostou’s book, Contours of White Ethnicity, as my theoretical base model; I questioned, analyzed, and developed his argument by suggesting that Greek American identity constantly changes throughout each generation via circumstance, social environment, or political atmosphere (just to name a few). I examined three different texts: Legends and Legacies by Pearl Kastran Ahnen, My Detroit by Dan Georgakas, and Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I discovered as each text distinctions in literary richness. As we move from pure fact in Ahnen’s work, to memoir in Georgakas’ text, to fictionalization in Eugenides’ novel, the level of flexibility in identity interpretation increases. In other words, the more fiction involved, the more room there is for interpreting identity. This suggests that Greek identity is extremely fluid and is constantly questioned and developed depending on circumstance.