MONUMENTALITY AGAINST DOMESTICITY: THE VRYSAKI STORY, AND THE GLOBAL HIERARCHY OF HERITAGE VALUE

The Vrysaki story is a complex story about contesting forms of value and ethics. On the one side is the right to a roof over one’s head and to the sociability of neighborhood life. On the other is the pressure to conserve antiquity from the ravages of time, as well as the more immediate pressure to direct that pressure to reinforcing a nation’s hold on independent statehood – a pressure that takes on unexpected meanings as we follow the kaleidoscopic oscillations of Greek-U.S.relations from when the Agora excavations began through the present moment of self-reflection amid a world of deteriorating power balances.

Drawing on his experience of the clash between models of historic conservation and claims to long-term residence rights, situated in the tension between geopolitical forces and local loyalties in three countries (Greece, Italy, and Thailand), the speaker will analyze the role of hidden (and not-so-hidden) colonial attitudes in shaping the standoff between the ancient past and a more recent historic past in the complex Vrysaki story, situating the restless interplay of ethics and values in the larger picture of crypto-colonial relations between Greece and the Western Powers and shifting ideas about aesthetics, modernism, urbanization, and heritage – all major themes in contemporary scholarship. The struggles generated in that vortex continue, often elsewhere, to this day. Tackling this complex past in scholarly fashion, as Sylvie Dumont does in her study of the destruction of the Vrysaki neighborhood, suggests a way forward to a nuanced understanding of today’s polarized cultural politics both nationally and internationally, raising important questions about the ways in which the valuation of culture affects – and responds to – the intimidating but also volatile inequalities in social, economic, and political life.

Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Emeritus, at Harvard University, is an expert in social theory, history of Anthropology, social poetics, and politics of history. His research encompasses a broad cultural horizon from Greece and Italy to Thailand. He has held positions and taught at universities across the US, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, France, Britain, China, and Australia.

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