Professor Dimitris Tziovas

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
Professor of Modern Greek Studies

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 5769
Email: d.p.tziovas@bham.ac.uk

Address: Arts Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I have taught at the University of Birmingham over twenty years and have supervised many research students. Their research has been disseminated internationally through publication in books or peer-reviewed journals and the standard of my supervision has been recognised by a University Award for Excellence in Doctoral Supervision (2010).

One of my aims in teaching and research is to test Lawrence Durrell’s claim that studying Greece and its culture allows you to discover yourself.

Staff details
Media information

Biography

I have served as Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham (2000-2003), Secretary of the European Association of Modern Greek Studies (1995-1998) and on the editorial board of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (1995-2009; 2020-; Reviews Editor 1995-2005) and Journal of Modern Greek Studies (U.S.A 1992-2007).

I have taught as a visiting professor at a number of universities in Europe and America and I am currently General Editor of a series devoted to Modern Greek literature in translation. I have also organised four major international conferences in Birmingham (Greek Modernism and Beyond, 1995; Greece and the Balkans 2001; Greek Diaspora and Migration 2007; Reimagining the Past: Greek Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture, 2011) which have led to important publications

Teaching

Undergraduate

Modern Odysseys: Myth, Literature & Film
Greek Antiquity and Modern Culture
Cities of the Ancient & Medieval Mediterranean: Monuments & Memories
Conflict and Nationalism in the Balkans

Postgraduate

Modernism and Greek Poetry
Greek Fiction: From Realism to Postmodernism
Greek Politics and Culture since the Civil War

Postgraduate supervision

Modern Greek literature and culture
Certain aspects of Greek history and politics
Reception of Greek Antiquity
Greek Diaspora and Anglo-Greek relations
Comparative studies in the areas of history, literature, translation and film with reference to Greece

Find out more - our PhD Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

My research interests involve the study of Greek Modernism in a comparative context; the reception of Greek antiquity and Byzantium; the study of Greek fiction informed by recent developments in critical theory; Greek diaspora and travel writing; nationalism and Greek culture; the Greek language controversy; and the cultural encounters between Greece and the Balkans.

My broader research interests also include comparative literary studies, critical theory, translation, film, diaspora and cultural studies.

In 2014 I have been awarded an AHRC grant to lead a networking project on ‘The cultural politics of the Greek crisis’ which aimed to stimulate debate among academics, research students, journalists, artists and writers on the implications of the economic crisis for Greek culture and identity and fostered an interdisciplinary dialogue among historians, literature and performing arts scholars, cultural theorists, political scientists and anthropologists on the ways in which economic crises impact on cultural practices and identity constructions.

In 2018 I have been awarded a two-year Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship.

Other activities

Head of Postgraduate Studies (Research)
International and Exchanges Officer
Member of the Birmingham Centre for Translation and B-Film: Birmingham Centre for Film Studies
I have acted as external co-supervisor for PhD theses for the Universities of Warwick, Cambridge, Manchester, University College London, and London Consortium.
I have organised several annual research colloquia for the Society for Modern Greek Studies which offer research students from all over the UK and other countries the opportunity to present their research.

Publications

Books

Η Πολιτισμική Ποιητική της ελληνικής πεζογραφίας [The Cultural Poetics of the Greek Fiction], Herakleion: Crete University Press 2017
ΟΜύθοςτηςΓενιάςτουΤριάντα: Νεοτερικότητα, ΕλληνικότητακαιΠολιτισμικήΙδεολογία [The Myth of the Generation of the Thirties: Modernity, Greekness and Cultural Ideology], Athens: Polis 2011. Recipient in 2012 of the Diavazo award for the best Critical Writing Prize and shortlisted for the Greek State Critical Writing Prize.
Από τον Λυρισμό στον Μοντερνισμό: Πρόσληψη, Ρητορική και Ιστορία στη Νεοελληνική Ποίηση [From Lyricism to Modernism: Reception, Rhetoric and History in Modern Greek Poetry], Athens: Nefeli 2005.
Kοσμοπολίτες και Aποσυνάγωγοι: Mελέτες για την ελληνική πεζογραφία και κριτική (1830-1930), [Cosmopolitans and Outcasts: Studies in Greek fiction and criticism (1830-1930)], Athens: Metaihmio 2003
The Other Self: Selfhood and Society in Modern Greek Fiction, Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books 2003.
Το Παλίμψηστο της Ελληνικής Αφήγησης: Από την αφηγηματολογία στη διαλογικότητα [The Palimpsest of Greek Narrative: From Narratology to Dialogism], Athens: Odysseas 1993, second edition 2002.
Οι μεταμορφώσεις του εθνισμού και το ιδεολόγημα της ελληνικότητας στο μεσοπόλεμο [The transformations of nationism and the ideology of Greekness in the inter-war period], Athens: Odysseas 1989, pp.170, second edition 2002.
Μετά την Αισθητική: Θεωρητικές δοκιμές και ερμηνευτικές αναγνώσεις της νεοελληνικής λογοτεχνίας [Beyond Aesthetics: Theoretical essays and interpretative approaches to modern Greek literature], Athens: Gnose 1987, second edition Odysseas 2003.

Edited books

Greece in Crisis: Culture and the Politics of Austerity, London: I.B. Tauris 2017
Re-imagining the Past: Greek Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture, Oxford University Press 2014.
Greek Diaspora and Migration since 1700, Farnham: Ashgate 2009, Farnham: Ashgate 2009.
Edition with an introduction of George Theotokas's Τετράδια Ημερολογίου 1939-1954 [Diary Notebooks 1939-1954], Athens: Estia 1987, second edition 1988, third revised edition 2005.
Greece and the Balkans: Identities, Perceptions and Cultural Encounters since the Enlightenment, Aldershot: Ashgate 2003.
Introduction and editing of the translation of Susan Bassnett's Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction, Athens: Patakis 2000.
Edition with an extensive introduction of Alexandros Rizos Rangkavis Διηγήματα, Athens: Ouranis Foundation Series 1999, vol. 1 & 2.
Greek Modernism and Beyond, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield 1997

General editor of Birmingham Modern Greek Translations

Thanasis Valtinos, The Last Varlamis, trans. Stathis Gauntlett, 2016
Yannis Skarimbas, Mariambas, trans. Leo Marshall, 2015.
Elias Maglinis, The Interrogation, trans. Patricia Felisa Barbeito, 2013. Recipient of the Constantinides Memorial Translation Prize awarded by the Modern Greek Studies Association (USA)
C.P. Cavafy, Selected Prose Works, trans Peter Jeffreys (published by The University of Michigan Press with the cooperation and aid of the series) 2010.
Michel Faïs, From the Same Glass and Other Stories, trans. Jane Nisselson Assimakopoulos, 2007.
Kostas Karyotakis, Battered Guitars: Poems and Prose, trans. William W. Reader & Keith Taylor, 2006.
Menis Koumandareas, Their Smell Makes me Want to Cry, trans. Patricia Felisa Barbeito & Vangelis Calotychos 2004.
Introduction in Sotiris Dimitriou, May Your Name Be Blessed trans. Leo Marshall 2000. This translation won the Hellenic Foundation for Culture Translation Award in 2002.
Introduction in Stratis Doukas's, A Prisoner of War's Story, trans. Petro Alexiou 1999.
Preface in Haris Vlavianos's collection of poetry, Adieu, trans. David Connolly, 1998.
Introduction in Dimitris Hatzis's The End of Our Small Town, trans. David Vere 1995