Acts of Identification and the Politics of the “Greek Past”: Religion, Tradition, Self by Vaia Touna A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Religious Studies University of Alberta © Vaia Touna, 2015 ABSTRACT This study is about a series of operational acts of identification, such as interpretations, categorizations, representations, classifications, through which past materials have acquired their meaning and therefore identity. Furthermore, this meaning- making will be demonstrated always to be situational and relational in the sense that the meaning of past material is a historical product created by strategic historic agents through their contemporary acts of identification and, as situated historical products, they are always under scrutiny and constant re-fabrication by yet other historical agents who are on the scene with yet other goals. It will also be evident throughout this study that meanings (identities) do not transcend time and space, and neither do they hide deep in the core of material artifacts awaiting to be discovered. The Introduction lays the theoretical and methodological framework of the study, situating its historiographical and sociological interests in the study of identities and the past, arguing for an approach that looks at the processes and techniques by which material and immaterial artifacts acquire their meaning. In Chapter 1 I look at scholarly interpretations as an operational act of identification; by the use of such anachronisms (which are inevitable when we study the past) as the term religion and the idea of the individual self, a certain widely-shared, and thoroughly modern understanding of Euripides’ play Hippolytus was made possible. Chapter 2 is concerned with the process of categorization, as another act of identification, which allows scholars to identify, and thereby describe (or better construct) the ancient Greek world by dividing it between what appeared to be naturally occurring private and ii public zones, through the use of categories such as “mystery cults,” “voluntary associations,” and “mystery religions.” Although Chapter 3 is mainly on representations, it is evident that interpretations and categorizations are both effectively used in the restoration of a pitted iconography of a small church in Thessaloniki, Greece, which is often explained as an act of iconoclasm. Instead of focusing on the pitted iconography as an instance of iconoclasm, the chapter once again exemplifies the shift of this project by looking at how a new symbol was fabricated by commentators by means of the representation, interpretation and categorization of material from the archive of the fragmented past. In Chapter 4 it is made evident how all of the intersecting processes of the previous chapters are in place in the construction of “traditional villages” in Greece. Although classification has been an important operational act of identification, it would not be enough without the way with which representation, interpretation and categorization have been used by strategic social actors in order to constitute what counts as a “traditional village,” doing so for their own social, economic, and political needs and thus contemporary interests. The Epilogue summarizes and exemplifies the shift of approach that the project is advocating by demonstrating how all of these operational acts, each of which have been identified in the previous chapters, are all working together in the construction of our view of the past and its relation to present interests. iii PREFACE This Thesis is an original work by Vaia Touna. Some of the research conducted for the thesis appeared in peer-reviewed publications by the same author. Portions of Chapter 1 appear in Vaia Touna, “The Manageable Self in the Early Hellenistic Era,” Bulletin of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, Vol. 39, No 2 (2010): 34-37. Portions of Chapter 2 appear in Vaia Touna, “Distinction, Domination, Privilege and the Role of Code Switching,” in Codes of Conduct: Code Switching and the Everyday Performance of Identity (eds. Monica Miller and Merinda Simmons, Forthcoming with Equinox Publishers, UK). Portions of Chapter 3 appear in Vaia Touna, “Re-describing Iconoclasm: Holey Frescoes and Identity Formation,” in Failure and Nerve in the Academic Study of Religion (eds. William Arnal, Willi Braun, and Russell McCutcheon. Equinox Publishers, 2012), 218- 227. Portions of Chapter 4 appear in Vaia Touna, “What’s New is Old Again: The Αναπαλαίωση of Tradition,” in Claiming Identity in the Study of Religion: Social and Rhetorical Techniques Examined (ed. Monica Miller, Forthcoming with Equinox Publishers, UK). iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii PREFACE iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v INTRODUCTION Introduction: A Complicated Affair 1 1. Reading the Past ....................................................................................... 1 2. Identity Politics ......................................................................................... 7 3. Clarifications ........................................................................................... 15 4. Essentialists ............................................................................................. 18 5. Constructivists ........................................................................................ 20 6. This Study ............................................................................................... 27 7. In Sum ..................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER 1 Gloria Patri: The Construction of the Modern Self 35 1. The Play: Euripides’ Hippolytus .......................................................... 36 2. Two Modern Theatrical Productions ..................................................... 39 3. Scholarly Readings of the Hippolytus ................................................... 45 4. An Alternative Reading ......................................................................... 67 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................. 73 CHAPTER 2 Matters of Classifications: The Case of “Mysteries” 79 1. A Matter of Classification .......................................................................... 80 2. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Great Mysteries .......................... 84 v 3. Switching Between Codes .......................................................................... 89 4. Mystery Cults and Religious Experience ................................................... 95 5. Why Distinction and Classification Matters ..............................................107 6. Conclusion ................................................................................................ 116 CHAPTER 3 Representations of the Ruined Past: Making Self and Other 121 1. Holey Frescoes ............................................................................................ 122 2. A Brief History of Words ............................................................................ 125 3. Holes in the Narrative ................................................................................. 142 A. Dating ........................................................................................................ 143 B. The Hesychast Controversy and the Zealots’ Uprising in Thessaloniki ... 144 C. Names and Rumors .................................................................................... 148 D. Renovations ............................................................................................... 150 4. Riders of the Past ......................................................................................... 157 CHAPTER 4 Traditioning Acts of Identification: The Case of Greek “Traditional Villages” 166 1. Coming Down the Mountain ...................................................................... 173 2. Village Life in Filmography ....................................................................... 174 3. Panteleimonas ............................................................................................. 177 4. Going Up the Mountain .............................................................................. 178 5. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 192 Epilogue The Ever-Present Past 201 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 vi Introduction A Complicated Affair I. Reading the Past In early June of 2006 while I was a master’s student in religious studies at the Theological school of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, I participated in a conference for the inauguration of the Greek Society of Religious Studies organized by professor Panayotis Pachis. The four-day conference, which attracted many notable scholars of religion from across Europe and North America (both Canada and the U.S.A), included for the participants a day trip to nearby cities, such as Pella, Dion, Vergina, each of which is well known for their important archaeological sites.1 One of these visits was to the Museum of the Royal Tombs in Vergina, a town 60km (40 miles) southwest from Thessaloniki. Known in antiquity as Aigai, Vergina was the first capital city of the ancient Macedonian kingdom and thus an important burial site, throughout antiquity, of ancient Macedonian royalty. Vergina became well known in the 1970s when Manolis Andronikos (1919-1992), a distinguished Greek archaeologists and professor at Aristotle