Supervisors info:
Καραμανωλάκης Ευάγγελος, Αναπληρωτής καθηγητής Νεότερης Ελληνικής Ιστορίας, τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Δήμητρα Λαμπροπούλου Επικ. Καθηγήτρια Νεότερης Ελληνικής Ιστορίας (από την Ελληνική Επανάσταση έως σήµερα), τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Ποθητή Χαντζαρούλα Μόνιμη Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Ιστορικής Ανθρωπολογίας 19ος- 20ος αι., τμήμα Κοινωνικής Ανθρωπολογίας και Ιστορίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου
Summary:
Emotional discourses in magazine's epistolography of the 60's
[Thesis summary]
The subject of the present thesis is the emotional discourses in the epistolography of the Greek magazines of general intrests during the transitional decade of 1960. In total, 676 issues of two of the most popular Greek magazines of the period in question, namely Romantso and Pantheon, have been used as references for the present thesis. These magazines were selected not only due to their wide circulation, but also because they dedicated considerable space to their readers’ correspondence. Τhe readers’ letters (either in their entirety or big extracts thereof), as well as the editors’ answers were published in the correspondence columns of these magazines. Moreover, these magazines were explicitly selected because they represented two main and often conflicting trends of the Greek society of the 60's, namely conservatism vis-à-vis modernism, tradition vis-à-vis the new social and cultural trends which were imported from the West. Romantso, the oldest and most popular Greek magazine, had in a sense a “folk” character and was mainly addressed to conservative parts of society, while Pantheon, during the course of the decade, gradually adopted a modern style, being addressed mostly to younger audiences and expressing their particular interests and preferences.
The main objective of the present thesis is to investigate the construction of emotional discourses in the correspondence columns of these magazines. Hence, the first part of the thesis examines the context of these discourses, i.e. on the one hand the general context of the Greek 60's and the social and cultural aspects thereof, and on the other hand the specific context, namely the epistolography of the correspondence columns. From this point of view, importance is attached to the relationship between the readers-correspondents on the one side, and the editors of the columns on the other. This relationship is of great importance because it shades light on, influences and interprets the way that the correspondents express their feelings and emotions. For this very reason, the second chapter of the thesis is focused on the particular columns, their form, their content, their position within the magazines and their interaction with the general material of the magazines. It also focuses on the editors of each column, their profile, their discourses and the specific relationship each of them builds with his/her readers.
The third and last chapter of this thesis is dedicated to the correspondents’ emotional discourses. Here the questions and concerns raised by the history of emotions play a central role, and of equal importance is the category of gender as an analytical tool. The aim of this chapter is to examine how the correspondents, on the basis of their gender, age and educational status- to the extent that this status can be identified- articulate their speech about their love affairs and emotions of love in general and how editors correspond thereto and handle their problems. Does this discourse reproduce normative standards? Do social rules and stereotypes about gender emotional qualities and behavior influence these discourses, and in the affirmative to what extent? And lastly, could we refer to the existence of certain emotional regimes in certain societies and cultures which can form and shape people’s emotional experiences? These are the fundamental questions that the present thesis attempts to address.
Keywords:
History of Emotions, Modern Greek History, Epistolography, Cultural History, Gender Studies
