Effie Yiannopoulou

Assistant Professor of English Literature and Cultural Theory
BA (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), MA (Lancaster University),
PhD (Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University)

Contact Details

Room 307 Γ
Tel:  +30 2310 997445
Email: yiannopo@enl.auth.gr

Research Interests

I have an interest in twentieth-century women’s writings, Black British and British Asian literature, postcolonial and cultural theory. I am especially interested in questions of mobility (including migration), embodiment, race, national identity and community-building especially in relation to gender structures. I am currently writing about Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy as part of a project investigating structures of mobility and affect in representations of war and conflict in prose writings by white women writers from the 1930s to the 1960s. I have co-edited Metaphoricity and the Politics of Mobility (Rodopi Editions, 2006), The Flesh Made Text Made Flesh (Peter Lang, 2007) and The Future of Flesh: a Cultural Survey of the Body (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

I have taken part in a European-funded research project entitled “Forms of Migratory Literature in Europe.” I am the review editor of Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, member of HASE (The Hellenic Association for the Study of English), ESSE (The European Society for the Study of English) and APL (The Association for Philosophy and Literature). I also coordinated the School’s series of seminar talks entitled Problematics of Literature and Theory for four years. I am currently Director of the Laboratory of Narrative Research (LNR) which has been based at the School of English at Aristotle University since 2016. While working towards setting up LNR, I obtained a research grant of 4,000 Euros in 2011, organised a day symposium on “Personal Narratives” in 2016 and one on “Narrative and Interdisciplinarity” in 2012. I have also co-organised a series of international symposia as director of the laboratory, such as “Narratives of Immigration: Community Interpreting as a Right/Rite of Passage” (2018), “Experimental Narratives” (2019), “Literature and Art Narratives under Lockdown” (2020) and “The Greek War of Independence and the United States” (2021).

Research Supervision

I am currently supervising two PhD projects, one on Englishness and mid-twentieth century women’s detective fiction and one on Australian national identity and film. I have also supervised doctoral research on contemporary Caribbean literature, the idea of community and the cultural politics of translation, and postgraduate research on a number of twentieth-century writers, from Tolkien to Jeanette Winterson, Tarantino’s films, the fictions of Andrea Levy, Sarah Waters, Monica Ali and Zadie Smith, Dione Brand and Shani Mootoo, Rummer Godden, Elizabeth Bowen, Jean Rhys, Angela Carter’s fairy tales and Brexit literature (among other topics). I have acted as supervisor for eleven successful MA dissertations and have been on the supervising committee of seven successfully completed PhD projects. I welcome Ph.D. students with interests in the fields of mid- and late-twentieth century and twenty-first century English (and Anglophone) literature, postcolonialism, postmodernism, questions of mobility, embodiment, gender, national identity, theories of community and race.

Teaching

  • Multicultural Britain (Lit 6-341)

  • Survey of English Literature II (Lit 6-261)

  • Introduction to Literary Studies (Lit 5-130)

  • Workshop in Critical Writing: Fiction (Lit 5-127)

  • English Literature and Culture: The 20th Century, 1950-2000 (Lit 6-245)

  • English Literature and Culture: The 20th Century, 1900-1950 (Lit 6-244)

  • Postcolonial Re-visions (Lit 6-389)

  • Modernism and the English Novel (Lit 6-436)

  • Postcolonial Readings (MA; Lit 6-546)

  • Cultures Beyond Dualisms, Dept. of Sociology, Cardiff University

Administration

I have been an ERASMUS academic coordinator for around twenty years. Until 2015, and for 15 years, I was also ECTS Coordinator for the School of English, and generally represented the School in all matters concerning ERASMUS student and staff mobility (ERASMUS STUDIES, ERASMUS PRACTICE, ERASMUS MUNDUS). I was also co-director of the MA programme in“English and American Studies” (2015-2016), Head of the Department of English Literature and Culture at the School of English (Auth), for two years (2017-2019) while I have also been on exam boards and numerous School committees over the years (such as the student affairs’ committee, the School’s internal evaluation committee, its research committee, the postgraduate studies committee etc.).

Publications

“Migration.” Bloomsbury Handbook of Twentieth-First Century Feminist Theory. Ed. Robin Truth Goodman. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

“Violence, War and the Human in Black British Utopias.” War on the Human: New Responses to an Ever-Present Debate. Ed. Theodora Tsimpouki and Konstantinos Blatanis. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. 236-256.

“Modernist and Postmodernist Fiction(s).” Movements and Trends in English Literature. Yiannis Kanarakis, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, Effie Yiannopoulou. Ελληνικά Ακαδημαϊκά Συγγράμματα και Βοηθήματα, 2015. www.kallipos.gr. 152-183.

Globality, the Totalitarian Mass and National Belonging.” The Psychology and Politics of the Collective: Groups, Crowds and Mass Identification. Ed. Ruth Parkin-Gounelas. New York and London: Routledge, 2012.121-135.

Review of The Body by Lisa Blackman (Oxford, New York: Berg, 2008) for the Hellenic Association of American Studies (HELAAS), 2009.

«Μαύρη Βρετανική Λογοτεχνία και η Ιδέα της Ευρώπης» [“Black British Writing and the Idea of Europe’]. Δια-Κείμενα 11 (2009): 59-71.

“Homing Memories: Place and Mobility in Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark.” Packingtown Review (University of Illinois Press) 2 (2010): 3-12.

“Isak Dinesen.” Compendium of 20th Century World Novelists and Novels. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

“The Flesh Made Text Made Flesh: Some Thoughts on Solid and Sullied Bodies.” Co-authored with Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou and Zoi Detsi-Diamanti. The European English Messenger 13.1 (2004): 81-84.

“(M)othering Monkeys, (B)othering Texts and the Difference It Makes to Women.” The Other Within, Vol. 1: Literature and Culture. Ed. Ruth Parkin-Gounelas. Thessaloniki: A Altitzis, 2001. 291-7.

“Re-visiting Autobiography.” European Journal of English Studies (EJES) 4.2 (2000): 200-5.

“Autistic Adventures: Love, Self-Portraiture and White Women’s Colonial Dis-ease.” European Journal of English Studies (EJES) 2.3 (1998): 324-42.

“Isak Dinesen.” The Reader’s Guide to Women’s Studies. Ed. Eleanor B. Amico. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

“Devouring the Divine Subject: The Female Mouth in Two Dinesen Tales.” Gramma: A Journal of Theory and Criticism 3 (1995): 7-25.

Journal Issues

Intimate Transfers. Co-edited with Maria Margaroni. Special issue of The European Journal of English Studies: A Journal of Theory and Criticism 9.3 (Autumn 2005).

Wrestling Bodies. Co-edited with Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou and Zoe Detsi-Diamanti. Special issue of Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism 11 (2003).

Books

Bodies, Theories, Cultures in the Post-Millenial Era: Selected Papers from the International Conference The Flesh Made Text (14-18 Μαΐου 2003). Co-edited with Katerina Kitsi- Mitakou and Zoe Detsi-Diamanti. Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, 2010.

The Future of Flesh: A Cultural Survey of the Body. Co-edited with Katerina Kitsi- Mitakou and Zoe Detsi-Diamanti. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

The Flesh Made Text Made Flesh. Co-edited with Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou and Zoe Detsi-Diamanti. New York: Peter Lang, 2007.

Metaphoricity and the Politics of Mobility. Co-edited with Maria Margaroni. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi Publishers, 2006.

Conferences (selected)

2019 “(Un)framing Englishness in Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy.” Body in Motion, Travelling Bodies in Anglophone Literature. Université Paris 8-Saint Denis (24-25 Μαίου 2019)

2017 “Προσεγγίζοντας την ιδέα της μετακίνησης». Εκπαίδευση, Μετακίνηση, Διαπολιτισμικότητα. Τμήμα Αγγλικής Φιλολογίας, Α.Π.Θ., και Ελληνική Εταιρία Αγγλικών Σπουδών (Μουσείο Βυζαντινού Πολιτισμού, 14 Ιανουαρίου 2017)

2016 “Personal Narratives: Some Thoughts” Panel Discussion. Personal Narratives. Laboratory of Narrative Research, School of English, Aristotle University (15 April 2016)

2015 “Closing Remarks.” Rethinking Democracy in Literature, Language and Culture. School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (15-17 May 2015) 

2014 “War on the Human in Black British Utopias.” The War on the Human: Human as Right, Human as Limit and the Task of the Humanities. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (27-29 November)

2014 “War in Black British Utopias.” The Violence of War: Experiences and Images of Conflict. University College London (19-20 June)

2013 “The Impossible Narratives of Andrea Levy’s Multicultural Utopias.” International Conference on Narrative. Manchester Metropolitan University (27-29 June)

2012 “Narrative and Interdisciplinarity.” Panel Discussion. Narrative and Interdisciplinarity. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (27 November)

2012 “Black Britain’s Multicultural Utopias.” Archaeologies of the Future: Tracing Memories, Imagining Spaces. The International Association for Philosophy and Literature (IAPL). Tallinn University, Estonia (28 March-2 June).

2011 “Multicultural Justice in Andrea Levy’s The Long Song.” The Letter of the Law: Law Matters in Language and Literature. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (5-8 May).

2011 “Cosmopolitanism beyond the Colour Divide: Postcolonial Englishness in Postwar Women’s Writings.” Invited talk at the Centre for the Humanities, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands (18 January).

2010 “Cosmopolitanism and the English Novel.” Rethinking the Novel. School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (23 April).

2009 “Rebecca West’s Balkans: The ‘Impossible Example’.” Double Edges: Rhetorics, Rhizomes, Regions. The International Association for Philosophy and Literature (IAPL). Brunel Univesity (1-7 June).

2009 «Μαύρη Βρετανική Λογοτεχνία και η Ιδέα της Ευρώπης». Μορφές Μεταναστευτικής Λογοτεχνίας στην Ευρώπη: η Υβριδική της Υπόσταση. Εργαστήριο Συγκριτικής Γραμματολογίας, Τμήμα Γαλλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Α.Π.Θ. (6 Απριλίου).

2008 “Rebecca West’s Travelling Europe.” From Brazil to Macao: Travel Writing and Diasporic Spaces. University of Lisbon (10-14 September).

2008 “Englishness and Treason in Rebecca West’s Journalism.” The Individual and the Mass. 7th HASE International Conference. School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (30 May–1 June).

2007 “Rebecca West and the Treason of War.” 8th Global Conference: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness. Salzburg, Αυστρία (19-23 March)

2006 The Politics of Waste. Panel organizer at the European Society for the Study of English conference (ESSE). University of London. (29 August–2 September).

2005 “Heading South East.” Fortress Europe and Its “Others”: Cultural Representations in Film, Media and the Arts (Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies). University of London (4-6 April).

2003 “Memory and the Gendered Politics of Relocation in Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark.” Places and Spaces: Culture, Memory and Identity. 6th British Council Symposium on English Studies in Europe. Delphoi, Greece (7-13 September).

2003 “Bookcrossing.com: Reading (Virtual) Space.” Invited talk at the panel “The Politics of Space: Reading Places.” Places and Spaces: Culture, Memory and Identity. Delphoi, Greece (7-13 September).

2002 “Metaphoricity and Postmodern Politics.” Co-organiser of panel (with Maria Margaroni, University of Cyprus) Translating Class, Altering Hospitality, 1st International Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History (CATH) Congress, University of Leeds (21-23 June).

2002 “‘Take not Thought for Food’: Culinary Piety and Feminine Excess in ‘Babette’s Feast’.” Eat and Drink and Be Merry? The Cultural Meaning of Food in the 21st Century, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) Conference, Amsterdam (3-5 Ιουνίου).