Zoe Detsi

Zoe Detsi is Professor of early American Literature and Culture at the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She holds a Ph.D. in Early American Theatre from Aristotle University. She has been teaching and researching in the fields of 18th- and 19th-century American culture and ideology. Her publications include articles on American drama and American political ideology, 18th- and 19th- century American theatre and gender, race and ethnic concerns.

detsi@enl.auth.gr
Tel:  +30 2310 99 7448
Fax: +30 2310 99 7432

PUBLICATIONS

Book

Forgotten Ladies: Early American Women Dramatists, 1750-1860. New York: Garland, 1998.

Edited volumes

Detsi, Zoe and David Roessel. The Cultural Politics of American Relief Efforts in Greece. Ex-Centric Narratives: Journal of Anglophone Literature, Culture and Media, vol. 6 (2022).

Detsi, Zoe. The Greek War of Independence and the United States: Narratives of Myth and Reality. European Journal of American Studies 17.1 (2022).

Detsi, Zoe and Maria Schoina, eds. Mapping New Trends: Greek Scholarship in Anglophone Studies. Gramma 26 (2019).

Detsi, Zoe and Savas Patsalidis, eds. The Viewing of Politics and the Politics of Viewing. Gramma 24 (2017).

Detsi-Diamanti, Zoe, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, Effie Yannopoulou, eds. The Future of Flesh: A Cultural Survey of the Body. New York: Palgrave/ Macmillan, 2009. 1-15.

Detsi-Diamanti, Zoe, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, Effie Yannopoulou, eds. The Flesh Made Text: Cultural and Theoretical Returns to the Body. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 1-10.

Detsi-Diamanti, Zoe, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, Effie Yannopoulou, eds. Wrestling Bodies/Wrestling Theories, Gramma: Theory of Literature and Culture 11 (2003). Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2004.

Articles in Journals and volumes

Δέτση, Ζωή. "Φυλετικές Αναπαραστάσεις του Άλλου: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon (2014)." Σκηνή 15 (2023): 105-119.

Detsi, Zoe. “Greek exceptionalism” and American cultural diplomacy: Mordecai M. Noah’s The Grecian Captive; or, The Fall of Athens (1822). Special Issue “The Greek War of Independence and the United States: Narratives of Myth and Reality,” European Journal of American Studies 17.1 (2022)

Detsi, Zoe. “The Technology of Orgasm: Sexuality, Maternity, and Hysteria in Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play (2009).” WiN: The EAAS Women’s Network Journal 2 (2020).

Detsi, Zoe. “Age and Politics in Early American Drama.” Critical Stages 20 (2019)

“American Theatre and the Quest for a Republican Identity: Judith S. Murray’s The Medium; or, Virtue Triumphant (1795).” The Politics and Polemics of Gender in Early American Theatre. Ed. Verena Holztrattner, Leopold Lippert, Ralph J. Poole, Michael Streif. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2018.

«Αμερικανικό Θέατρο και Ιδεολογία:(Ανα)παραστάσεις της Εθνικής Ταυτότητας». Απ-εικονίσεις της Αμερικής. Επιμ. Τατιανή Γ. Ραπατζίκου και Σμάτη Γεμενετζή-Μαλαθούνη. Θεσσαλονίκη: Ελληνική Εταιρεία Αμερικανικών Σπουδών, 2017.

“Free Labor, (Sub)Human Identity, and ‘Inalienable Rights’: Henry Grimm’s The Chinese Must Go (1879).” War on the Human: New Responses to an Ever-Present Debate. Ed. Theodora Tsimpouki and Konstantinos Blatanis. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. 191-213.

«Δημοκρατικές αντιπαραθέσεις και θεατρικοί πειραματισμοί: Το μετα-επαναστατικό θέατρο της Αμερικής». Πρακτικά Ε’ Θεατρολογικού Συνεδρίου. Θέατρο και Δημοκρατία. Επιμ. Αλεξία Αλτουβά, Καίτη Διαμαντάκου, Εύα Στεφανή. Αθήνα: Τμήμα Θεατρικών Σπουδών, ΕΚΠΑ, 2016.

Sarah Pogson’s The Female Enthusiast (1807) and American Republican Virtue.” Polish Journal of American Studies 8 (2014): 17-32.

“Legal Exclusion vs. Republican Inclusion in Judith S. Murray’s The Traveller Returned (1796).” The Letter of the Law: Literature, Justice and the Other. Ed. Stamatina Dimakopoulou, Christina Dokou, Efterpi Mitsi. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013.

“Travelling Across the Nation: Chinese Migration and the American Western Plays of the 1870s.” Mobile Narratives: Travel, Migration, and Transculturation. Ed. Eleftheria Arapoglou, Mónika Fodor, and Jopi Nyman. New York: Routledge, 2013.

“‘The youth grasp the sword and for battle prepare’:” Patriotic revival and national optimism in Mary Carr’s The Fair Americans (1815).” Forever Young? The Changing Images of America. Ed. Philip Coleman and Stephen Matterson. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag, 2012.

 “Homogenizing the Masses: American Republican Ideology and the Threat of ‘intemperate democracy’ in Robert Munford’s The Patriots (ca 1777).” GRAMMA 18 (2010): 31-48.

“Ethnicity and the Republican National Body: Americanizing ‘Paddy’ in Early American Plays, 1789-1825.” Making National Bodies. Ed. Stefan L. Brandt and Astrid Fellner. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2009.

“Staging Working-Class Culture: Benjamin A. Baker’s A Glance at New York (1848).” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 15. 1 (2009): 11-26.

“Burlesquing ‘Otherness’ in Nineteenth-Century American Theatre: The Image of the Indian in John Brougham’s Met-a-mora; or, The Last of the Pollywogs (1847) and Po-Ca-Hon-Tas; or, The Gentle Savage (1855).” American Studies 48:3 (2008): 5-30.

“(Re)Considering American Studies in Greece.” European Journal of American Studies (2006): http://ejas.revues.org/document327.html

“Politicizing Aesthetics: The Politics of Violence and Sexuality in Colonial and Revolutionary Representations of America as an Indian Woman.” The Anachronist 12 (2006): 61-78.

“Visions of Blackness: Ideology and the Other in Nineteenth-Century American Drama.” Ideology and Aesthetics in American Literature and Arts. Ed. Jaroslav Kusnir. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2005. 145-70.

“The Drama of Colonialism: National Identity and the Construction of the Indian/Other in Early Nineteenth-Century American Plays.” Prospects 30 (2005): 1-24.

“Early American Women’s Romantic Tragedies and the Rhetoric of Republicanism: The Case of Charlotte Barnes’ Octavia Bragaldi (1837).” Women’s Contribution to Nineteenth-Century American Theatre. Ed. Miriam Lopez and Lola Narbona. Biblioteca Javier Coy d’ estudis nord- Americans. Universitat de València, 2004. 43-58.

“The Language of Assent: Republican Rhetoric and the Metaphors of National Redemption in American Revolutionary Drama.” American Drama (Special Issue: American Drama and American Wars) 13 (2004): 1-30.

“Bio-Slavery, or The Cannibalistic Quest for Longevity: Harvesting for Human Organs in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Drama.” Biotechnological and Medical Themes in Science Fiction. Ed. Domna Pastourmatzi. Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2002. 111-30.

“Το Μελόδραμα και ο ‘Εκδημοκρατισμός’ της Αμερικανικής Κοινωνίας.” Μελόδραμα Ειδολογικοί και Ιδεολογικοί Μετασχηματισμοί. Επιμ. Σάββας Πατσαλίδης και Αναστασία Νικολοπούλου. Θεσσαλονίκη: University Studio Press, 2001. 123-62.

“Το Λαϊκό Θέατρο τον 18ο και 19ο Αιώνα: Η Γέννηση της Αμερικανικής Μουσικής Κωμωδίας.” Ιστορίες και (Μυθ)Ιστορίες: Made in the U.S.A. Επιμ. Σάββας Πατσαλίδης και Γιούλη Θεοδοσιάδου. Θεσσαλονίκη: Ελληνική Εταιρία Αμερικανικών Σπουδών, 2000. 135-56.

“Republican Rhetoric and Gender Ideology in Mercy O. Warren’s Romantic Tragedies, The Sack of Rome and The Ladies of Castile (1790).” American Drama 8 (1998) 1-25.

Invisible Women: Pioneering Female Playwrights in Early American Theater, 1780-1860.” Women, Creators of Culture. Ed. E. Georgoudaki and D. Pastourmatzi. Aristotle University: Hellenic Association of American Studies, 1997. 283-89.

“Seduction, Revenge, and Suicide in Julia Ward Howe’s Leonora; or, The World’s Own.” New England Theater Journal 7 (1996): 57-75.

“Mercy Otis Warren: Her Political Self and Her Personal Dilemma.” Gramma 2 (1994): 35-45. “Beginnings of American Feminist Theater: Julia Ward Howe’s Protest Play Leonora.” Nationalism and Sexuality: Crises of Identity. Ed. Y. Kalogeras and D. Pastourmatzi. Aristotle University: Hellenic Association of American Studies, 1995. 81-87.

Reviews

Review of: Thomas A. Foster, ed. Women in Early America, New York: New York UP, 2015, European Journal of American Studies (Feb. 2016). URL: http://ejas.revues.org/11181 

Review of: Robert S. Allison, The American Revolution: A Concise History, New York: Oxford UP, 2011, European Journal of American Studies (Sept. 2014). URL: http://ejas.revues.org/10321

Review of: Faye E. Dudden, Women in American Theatre: Actresses and Audiences, 1790-1870. American Studies 40.1 (1999): 132-33.

Conferences and Symposia

21-22/3/2021, Symposium, The Greek War of Independence and the United States: Myths and Reality, organized by the School of English, Auth, to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of the Greek Revolution

6/4/2019, International conference, Feminism and Technoscience, organized by the School of English, Auth, and the EAAS Women’s Network, with the presentation: “The Technology of Orgasm: Sexuality, Maternity, and Hysteria in Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play (2009)”

14/9/2018, International Conference Greek American Relations: Evolving Regional Challenges and Opportunities, organized by the University of Macedonia and the University of Piraeus, with the presentation: “The Reception of the Greek War of Independence by American Writers.”

24/4/2018, Symposium Soft Power and Cultural Diplomacy. organized by the American Consulate of Thessaloniki, with the presentation: “Theatre as Cultural Diplomacy.”

3/3/2016, Seminar Romanticism, organized by the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, with the presentation: “The Impact of Romanticism on the formation of the American National Identity.”

29-30/9/2016, International conference The Politics and Polemics of Gender in Early American Theatre, organized by Salzburg University with the presentation: “Theatrical Nationalism and Gender Identity: Judith S. Murray’s The Medium; or, Virtue Triumphant (1795).”

15-17/5/2015, International conference Rethinking Democracy in Literature, Language, and Culture, organized by the School of English, AUTH, with the presentation: “‘Securing the Revolution’: Early American Theatre and the Performance of Democracy.”

27-29/11/2014, International conference The War on the Human: Human as Right, Human as Limit, and the Task of the Humanities, organized by the School of English at the University of Athens, with the presentation: “Free Labor, (Sub)Human Identity, and ‘Inalienable Rights’: Henry Grimm’s The Chinese Must Go (1879).”

5-8/11/2014, 5^th National Theatre Conference Theatre and Democracy organized by the Department of Theatre at the University of Athens with the presentation: “Democratic Discrepancies and Theatrical Experimentations on the Post-revolutionary American Stage.”

28–30/5/2012, IV International Conference of American Drama and Theatre: The Romance of Theatre: American Drama and Its Stories, organized by the University of Seville with the presentation: “Sarah Pogson’s The Female Enthusiast (1807) and the Romance of American Republicanism.”

30/3- 3/4/2012, EAAS Biennial Conference: The Health of the Nation. Izmir, Ege University. Workshop 11: “American (Anti) Theatricality and Contagion: Staging the Health of the Nation,” with the presentation: “William Wells Brown’s The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858) and the Disease of Slavery.”

30/9/2011, Symposium Απ-εικονίσεις της Αμερικής, organized by the Hellenic Association for American Studies with the presentation: “American Theatre and Ideology: (Re)presentations of American National Identity.”

5- 8/5/2011, HASE International Conference: The Letter of the Law: Law Matters in Language and Literature, organized by the School of English at the University of Athens, with the presentation: “Legal Exclusion vs. Republican Inclusion: Early American Drama and the Politics of Discrimination.”

16-20/6/2010, MESEA International Conference: Travel, Trade, and Ethnic Transformations. Pécs, Hungary, with the presentation: “Chinese Migration, Labor, and the Myth of the West: American National Identity and the Western Plays of the 1870s.”

26-29/3/2010, EAAS Biennial Conference: “Forever Young”? The Changing Images of America. Workshop 18: Rhetorical Constructions of Youth from the American Revolution to the Civil War, organized by the University of Dublin, with the presentation: “‘The youth grasp the sword and for battle prepare’: Patriotic revival and national optimism in Mary Carr’s The Fair Americans (1815).”

30/5 – 1/6/2008, HASE International Conference: The Individual and the Mass, organized by the School of English, AUTH, with the presentation: “Homogenizing the masses: American Republican Ideology and the Threat of ‘intemperate democracy’ in Robert Munford’s The Patriots (ca 1777).”

9-12/5/2008, EAAS Biennial Conference: E Pluribus Unum or E Pluribus Plura? Workshop 2: Staging the Nation: The Theater of American Identities, organized by the University of Oslo, Norway, with the presentation: “Staging National Identity and Working-Class Culture: Benjamin A. Baker’s A Glance at New York (1848) and the American Urban Plays.

Supervisor of Doctoral Dissertations

1. Narratives of Punishment: Society and the Death Penalty in Contemporary Anglophone Plays (completed 14/1/2021)
2. The Power of Camp-loitation: Dazzling the Gay Audiences in Contemporary Music Stage (completed: 4/6/2019)
3. In Times of Ghosts: Nationalism, War, and Repression in Contemporary Theatre (since 25/1/2018)
4. Social Media Dominance: A Theatrical Response to a Human Crisis (since 25/1/2018)
5. Inter/Nationalizing the Spectacle: The Politics of Spectatorship in Neo-Burlesque Performance (since 28/1/2016)

Reader and member of the Evaluation Committee of Doctoral Dissertations

1. “Lying in a Bed of Ancient Ruins”: Charles Mee Revisits Greek Drama (completed: 2019)
2. Negotiating the Life Fantastic: The Interplay of Narrative and Culture in Tabletop Role-Playing Games (completed 2019)
3. Latino/a Reception of Greek Tragic Myth: Healing (and) Radical Politics (completed: 2018)
4. Language Acquisition via Drama (completed: 2018)
5. Performing cancer: toward an aesthetic of the unpresentable (completed: 2017)
6. Native American Autobiography: The Communitist Perspective in William Apess, Charles Eastman, Sarah Winnemucca and Zitkala-Ša (completed: 2016)
7. Novels of Return: Ethnic Space in Contemporary Greek-American and Italian-American Literature (completed: 2011)
8. Phenomenological Explorations in Harold Pinter’s Dramatic and Filmic Works (completed: 2009)
9. The theatre of Theodoros Terzopoulos: (inter)cultural dimensions, (ex)centric directions (completed: 2005)

Other Academic Activities

• Co- chief editor of Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism (e-ISSN: 2529-1793) https://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/gramma
• Co-Organizer of Summer Schools:
  • Health – Culture – Healing (June 28 – July 4, 2019), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
  • Discussing Gender: Challenges and Conflicts (June 27 – July 3, 2018), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
  • Exploring Conflict, Sharing a Future in a World in Transition (June 26 – July 1, 2017), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
  • Crossing Borders and Civic Engagement in a Changing World (June 29 – July 7, 2016), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
  • Globalization and Participatory Learning: Literature and Culture in a Media World (June 29 – July 4, 2015), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
• Member of the Organizing Committee of International Conferences:
  • The Politics of Space and the Humanities (Dec. 15 – Dec. 17, 2017), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
  • Rethinking Democracy in Language, Literature, Culture (May 15 – May 17, 2015), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
  • The Viewing of Politics and the Politics of Viewing: Theatre Challenges in the Age of Globalized Communities (April 18 – April 20, 2013), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
  • The Flesh Made Text: Bodies, Theories, Cultures in the Post-Millennial Era (May 15 – May 18, 2003), School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Administrative Work

• Director of the Department of American Literature (2014-16, 2017-2019)
• Co-Director of the MA program “Anglophone Literatures and Cultures” (2014-16), School of English, AUTH
• Co-Director of the MA Program “English and American Studies,” (2018 - ) School of English, AUTH
• Director of the Interdepartmental MA Program “European Literature and Culture,” (2015-19), Faculty of Philosophy, AUTH
• Coordinator of the Internal Evaluation Committee of the School of English, AUTH