Neuroscience and Greek mythology

This article highlights the major reflections of ancient Greek mythology in modern neuroscience. An analysis of ancient Greek texts and medical literature using the MeSH term mythology was performed to identify mythological references pertaining to neuroscience. The findings are discussed in relation to etymology, early conceptualization of the nervous system structure and function, incipient characterization of neuropsychiatric disease, and philosophical stance to the practice of medicine in ancient Greece. The search identified numerous observations in clinical neurology (e.g., stroke, epilepsy, cognitive and movement disorders, sleep, pain and neuromuscular medicine, neuroinfectious diseases, headache, neuroophthalmology, and neurourology), neurosurgery, and psychiatry, as well as basic neurosciences (e.g., anatomy, embryology, genetics, pathology, and pharmacology) concealed in ancient myths. Beyond mere etymological allure and imaginative reflections in science, these fables envisage philosophical concepts that still tantalize our protean medical practice today.     

Reflections on Objects,Spirits and Photographs from a Present Becoming Damaged Future

My afterword engages six papers in the special issue “Archives and Anthropologies: From Histories to Futures”. It teases out particular arguments, locates common themes and explores the papers' relevance to wider debates in anthropology and visual culture. My paper particularly focuses on discussions around anthropology's analytical priorities and the position of the visual/material Vis-à-vis the social.     

Facing the Greek junta: the European Community,the Council of Europe and the rise of human-rights politics in Europe

Abstract

In April 1967, a group of colonels seized power in Greece. Since Greece was a member-state of the Council of Europe and held an association agreement with the European Community, both organizations had to define their positions vis-à-vis the new military regime. Very soon, politicians in the parliamentary assemblies of both organizations started to cooperate with the aim of imposing sanctions on Greece. This article examines the inter-organizational dynamics between the European Community and the Council of Europe on Greece during the colonels’ regime. It argues that the European Community imported concrete policy positions and even normative ideas which had first emerged in the Council of Europe. In so doing, the Community prepared the ground for its future human-rights policies.     

Βλήμενος ἦν (Iliad 4.211): Lexical or Periphrastic?

In this article, we consider whether the form Βλ?μενο? ?ν in Il. 4.211 should be considered lexical or periphrastic. Based on a discussion of the context, an analysis of the usage of the verb β?λλω elsewhere in the Iliad, and an application of some generally accepted criteria of periphrasticity, we conclude that both interpretations are in fact possible. We connect this to the diachronic development of periphrastic constructions, which, in an early stage of grammaticalization, are often ambiguous.     

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS? GENOMIC HISTORY AND THE RETURN OF RACE IN THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN

This article discusses the impact of genomic history, a subdiscipline that emerged in the study of the ancient Mediterranean in the 2010s. In 2014, scientists first published a method for extracting genetic material, which they christened aDNA (ancient DNA), from ancient human remains in hot climates. After a decade of research, genomic history is now poised to transform our understanding of Mediterranean premodernity, centering migration and conflict as the key mechanisms for cultural change. Despite years of critique, aDNA researchers have failed to seriously examine the bioessentialist assumptions implicit in their work—a failure that has led many to deploy language that is strikingly evocative of pre-World War II racialism. Even worse, some genomic historians continue to make troubling overtures toward the ethnonationalist Right, which has been ascendant across Europe and North America since the 2010s. This article traces the intellectual genealogy of genomic history from World War II to the present, examines recent attempts to answer criticism from the humanities and social sciences, and suggests paths for responsible use of aDNA in historical and prehistorical scholarship.     

A Clan‐Based Society of South Greece and its Militarization After the Second World War: Some Characteristics of Violence and the Construction of Habitus in the South Peloponnese

This paper presents some basic characteristics of the subculture of local society in the southern Peloponnese in Greece during the twentieth century. In particular, it examines the basic anthropological and social elements that formed the character of the members of the local society in Mani during the early part of the century, by emphasizing (i) the clan structure of the particular society, and (ii) the militarization of Mani as a strategy for mediation in local social relations.

The paper then analyses the way in which these basic social characteristics were interwoven with the dynamics of the political situation during the twentieth century (the Second World War, the occupation of Greece by Italian and German forces, and the Greek Civil War) by exploring the cultural habitus of the left‐wing and the right‐wing political networks in the region. Finally, it refers to the dialectics of the dynamic relationship between a clan‐based local society and the political events of the late 1940s, by means of some observations on the local social institution of the vendetta.