Myth, Representation, and Identity

Lipsi forms a modern construction that has disconnected from its past. Recently, the community has formed a collective identity reconstructed from fragments of collective memory. This book is an ethnographic account of the mythology proposed by the community and examines how history and collective memory tightly interconnect.

"Papachristophorou is one of a small but growing number of anthropologists who have identified the value of popular cosmologies, the linkages between these cosmologies and official religion, and the symbolic construction of landscape. In this book, we not only attain a sense of how communities generate moral values but also the boundaries between good and evil, the past and present." - Nick Doumanis, author of Before the Nation and Myth and Memory in the Mediterranean

"This exceptional book offers one of the richest accounts of a village Greek cosmology ever assembled. Papachristophorou captures a local orientation to the landscape and the past which weaves together stories about figures such as Calypso, Ulysses, the devil, saints, and recent historical figures. This portrait of Lipsi disrupts the assumption that 'myth', 'legend', 'religion', and 'history' are necessarily discrete categories." - Charles Stewart, author of Dreaming and Historical Consciousness in Island Greece

Autorentext
Marilena Papachristoporou is Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Archeology at the University of Ioannina, Greece.

Inhalt
Introduction: Lipsi 2000-2010: History and Storytelling 1. On the Island of Goddess Calypso 2. About Origins (A Story to be Continued) 3. Demons and Sancta 4. Hierophanies and Miracles 5. Fertility and Death 6. Ordinary Days and Talks 7. The Narrative Construction of the Community Postface: Reflections on Fieldwork