Click on the images below for more information on each publication.
Bouboulina and the Greek Revolution:
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Heroine of 1821
April K. Householder, ed. Lexington/Rowman and Littlefield (2023)
A critical look at the life and times of one of the most important figures in modern Greek history. By foregrounding gender politics in a variety of international contexts, this volume separates fact from fiction with a critical and innovative approach to the historiography of the Greek Revolution.
This volume, the first book in English to look at the legendary heroine of the Greek Revolution, Laskarina Bouboulina (1771-1825), illuminates the life and times of one of the most important figures in modern Greek history, the Mediterranean, and indeed, the world. Using a variety of methodologies from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, the contributors present in-depth and highly nuanced analyses of the history, politics, and culture of nineteenth century Ottoman-Greece and Bouboulina’s contributions to the Greek War of Independence. At the age of fifty and mother to ten children, Bouboulina led the Greek navy and helped Greece gain its independence from the Ottoman empire, becoming the first female Admiral in world history, at a time when women were only thought of as mothers, wives, and concubines. But her leadership on the battlefield is only part of the story– by considering her three-century impact on feminism, cultural production, and as a touchstone of diasporic Greek identity, this volume also expands our understanding of her far-reaching and under-recognized contributions. Given the important role that Bouboulina continues to have in popular culture, this collection is all the more vital in advancing the critical discourse on 1821 and ensuring that Bouboulina occupies a central place in that conversation.
In progress...
Spetsiot painter Eleni Giovanni Altamura Boukoura (1824-1900), often referred to as Greece’s “first female painter” led an extraordinary life and produced artwork with themes way ahead of its time. This biography will explore her misunderstood life and the messages she left behind in her art.
Singing Greek America:
Annabouboula and the Defiant Musical Construction of Self
Modern Greek Studies Association conference presentation with Yona Stamatis, Ph.D. (University of Illinois, Springfield)
October, 2022, Toronto, Canada
To be published in Ergon: Greek/American Art s and Letters
Greek American Feminist Artists: Radical Traditions
New book chapter with Kostis Kourelis, PhD. (Franklin & Marshall College) to be published in Greek American Women in Context. Theodora Patrona and Eleftheria Arapoglu (eds.) 2023.
Women’s history in the Greek American community has celebrated the role that women have played as mothers, wives, community leaders, teachers, and caretakers. Home, church, and school are the paradigmatic spaces of patriarchal confinement within which female agency has been allowed to operate. This historiographic focus has overlooked women’s presence in the public spaces of the museum and the art gallery, where Greeks made enduring contributions to radical self-inquiry, critique, and expression. We provide an introduction to the pioneering Greek American female artists of the 1900s-1930s (Cleo Damianakis, Ethel and Jenne Magafan) and then focus on the 1970s, when Lynda Benglis, Mary Grigoriadis, Diamanda Galas, and other Greek American artists made major contributions to the second wave feminist movement in the visual arts. This introduction hopes to initiate a reexamination of what has been marginalized in the Greek American experience and celebrate Greek American cultural producers in the making of the art historical canon.
We turn our attention to six women artists who were born in the U.S. between 1895 and 1955 and grew up in the Greek immigrant community. Our aim is not simply to celebrate the mere existence of Greek women artists but to argue that their Greek American experience uniquely equipped them for the critical interventions that they made in the course of modern art. Cleo Damianakes (1895-1979) from San Francisco, received national recognition through her murals, award-winning etchings, and book illustrations–most notably in her covers of Ernest Heminway’s novels. Ethel and Jenne Magafan (1916-1993 and 1916-1952) from Colorado, flourished as muralists under the Works Progress Administration and left their mark in national spaces, including the U.S. Capitol. Lynda Benglis (1941-) from Louisiana, is a sculptor and provocateur whose 1974 nude portrait in Artforum is considered one of the most important images of modern art. Mary Grigoriadis (1942-) from New Jersey, was a leader in the Pattern and Decoration movement and a founding member of A.I.R., the first women-owned cooperative gallery. Diamanda Galás (1955-) from San Diego, is a performance artist who pushes the limits of art through voice, technology, and the use of her body.
Representations of Women in Greek American Films
about the Greek Revolution
New book chapter in Η ελληνική Επανάσταση και η ελληνική διασπορά στη Βόρεια Αμερική (The Greek Revolution and the Greek Diaspora in North America. Athens: Asini, 2022). Maria Kaliambou, editor.
Still from Cliffs of Freedom (2019)
This study begins with an autobiographical reflection on my own identity as a second-generation Greek-American and how I came to make a documentary film about Bouboulina, heroine of the Greek Revolution. Next, I make observations about the film’s reception within the Greek-American community and examine the gendered politics of another text produced by Greek-Americans about a woman in the Greek Revolution, the 2019 film, Cliffs of Freedom. Central to this analysis is the idea that media plays a profound role in shaping Greek American women’s identities. Relying on intersectional axes of critical race theory, feminism, modern Greek Studies, historiography, and film and literary analysis, this essay uses a comparative feminist model to make connections between the concept of patriotism in the Greek diaspora and the gendered uses of “1821” in the visual culture that commemorates Greek independence.
Film reviews:
Representations of the Feminine in the Greek Crossover Films of Michael Cacoyannis and Jules Dassin
Radio/Public Speaking:
Discussing Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film, Rope on HCC radio’s “The Armchair Directors” series
Discussing the life and work of Alice Guy Blache on The Armchair Directors
Speech given at the UMBC Allies dinner, 10/18/10