Effie Yiannopoulou

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

Associate Professor of English Literature and Cultural Theory

Contact Details

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

Research Interests

I have an interest in twentieth-century British women’s writings, Black-British and British-Asian literature, cultural theory, postcolonial and decolonial thought and the environmental humanities. I am especially focused on exploring questions of mobility (including migration), embodiment, race, national identity and community-building in relation to gender structures and environmental issues. I am currently researching the fictions of end-of-empire British women writers (1930s to1970s), such as Rumer Godden and Olivia Manning, whose critique of empire, war and patriarchy are enmeshed with their representations of the natural world, plant life, landscape and their diasporic movement through them. 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 led a research project entitled “Unravelling the Cocoon of Memory: Women’s Narratives in a Fading World” (2022-2023) which was funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Public Humanities Initiative (SNFPHI) at Columbia. I have also taken part in a European-funded research project entitled “Forms of Migratory Literature in Europe.” I am member of HASE (The Hellenic Association for the Study of English), ESSE (The European Society for the Study of English), HELAAS (Hellenic Association for American Studies), and APL (The Association for Philosophy and Literature).

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 (www.enl.auth.gr/lnr). While working towards setting up LNR, I obtained a research grant of 4,000 Euros in 2011 and have organised a series of day symposia (“Personal Narratives” in 2016, “Narrative and Interdisciplinarity” in 2012 and “Public Humanities” in 2024). 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), “Econarratives in the Anthropocene” (2022), “The NArts (Narrative Arts) Series” (2025).

Research Supervision

I am currently supervising PhD research on the place of cosmopolitan thought in Elif Shafak’s fiction while I’ve recently completed the supervision of a PhD thesis on the representations of empire and its discourses in the writings of the British queens of crime (Christie, Marsh, Allingham). I have also supervised doctoral research on contemporary Caribbean literature, the idea of community and the cultural politics of translation, and postgraduate research on twentieth-century and contemporary writers, from Tolkien to Jeanette Winterson, Andrea Levy, Sarah Waters, Monica Ali and Zadie Smith, Dione Brand and Shani Mootoo, Rummer Godden, Elizabeth Bowen, Jean Rhys, Angela Carter, Mohsin Hamid, Adiba Jaigirdar and Jonathan Coe. I have acted as supervisor for twenty nine 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, and (postcolonial) environmental studies, especially plant theories and histories.

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 546)

  • Thinking the nation, (dis)locating postwar Englishness (MA; Lit 560)

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

Administration

I have been an ERASMUS+ academic coordinator for more than twenty years. For fifteen years, till 2015, 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 (2017-2019) while I have also been on exam boards and numerous School committees over the years.

Publications

“Disrupting Eating Spaces in Isak Dinesen’s “Babette’s Feast”.’ Syn-Thèses: Intermedial Crossovers in Audiovisual and Interactive Arts (2024): 205-216. https://doi.org/10.26262/st.v0il5.10068

“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.

«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.

“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.

“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.

Books and Journal Issues

The Cultural Politics of Space. Co-edited with Tatiani Rapatzikou.

Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism 27 (2020).

Bodies, Theories, Cultures in the Post-Millenial Era: Selected Papers from the International Conference The Flesh Made Text (14-18 Μαίου 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.

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).

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

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

Conferences (selected)

2024 “Olivia Manning’s eerie landscapes of Englishness.” 17th ESSE Conference Lausanne (26-30 August)

2024 “Haunting Gardens in Rumer Godden’s Fiction.” 8th Derrida Today Conference, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (10-14 June)

2023 “Empire and World War Two in Olivia Manning’s The Levant Trilogy.” Afterlives of Empire in the Public Imagination. Sapienza University, Rome (21-22 September)

2023 “Unhomely gardens in Rumer Godden’s China Court.” Haunted Landscapes: Nature, Super-Nature and Global Environments. Falmouth University, UK (4-6 July)

2021 “(Ε)motion in Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy.” Rewriting War and Peace in the Twentieth and Twentieth-First Centuries: Contemporary British and American Literature. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (8-9 September)

2021 “Walking as Dis-orientation.” Walking as a Question. University of Western Macedonia, Prespes, Greece (4-11 July)

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)

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)

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

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

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 April).

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 June).