Antonis Balasopoulos
Associate Professor
Department of English Studies
University of Cyprus
PROFILE
Undergraduate studies at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki (B.A English Language and Literature 1991). Graduate Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (M.A English 1994; Ph.D English, Minor in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, 1998). He has taught at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2001), the University of Minnesota (1994-97), and the University of California, Santa Cruz (2007). He has held a Visiting Research Fellowship at Princeton University (2004-05) and has been appointed Institute Faculty at the Dartmouth Institute of American Studies, Dartmouth College (June 2007). He is currently Chair of the Department of English Studies at the University of Cyprus.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Comparative Utopian studies; literature and culture of US empire; literature, geography and the production of space; critical theory, especially Marxism, postcolonial studies, and theories of the political; visual culture, especially cinema.
AREAS OF INTEREST IN GRADUATE STUDENT SUPERVISION
Utopian fiction and nonfiction, 16th-20th centuries; American fiction, 18th and 19th centuries; Postcolonial literature and theory (nation, empire, postcolony); literary geographies; aesthetics, politics and western Marxism; theories of the political; European and American cinema, especially 1914-1940.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Figures of Utopia: Culture, Politics, Philosophy. Monograph. Under advance contract, University of California Press.
Edited Volumes
2005
Antonis Balasopoulos and Stephanos Stephanides, eds. “Comparative Literature and Global Studies: Histories and Trajectories.” Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism 13. Special issue. 230 pages.
2008
Antonis Balasopoulos, Gesa Mackenthun, Theodora Tsimpouki, eds. Conformism, Non-Conformism and Anti-Conformism in the Culture of the United States. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. 330 pages.
2010
Απόστολος Λαμπρόπουλος και Αντώνης Μπαλασόπουλος, επιμ. Χώρες της Θεωρίας: Ιστορία και Γεωγραφία των Κριτικών Αφηγημάτων. Αθήνα: Μεταίχμιο. 583 σελίδες.
2012
Antonis Balasopoulos, ed., Intellectuals and the State: Complicities, Confrontations, Ruptures. Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, 3 (forthcoming).
Journal Essays
1997
“The Demon of (Racial) History: Reading Candyman.” Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism 5: 25-47.
2001
2002
“The Spatial Politics of Partition Literature.” The European English Messenger 11.2 (Autumn): 53-56.
2003
“Progress, Regression, Repetition: Edgar Rice Burroughs'
Tarzan of the Apes and the Ambivalences of Imperial Modernity.”
Imaginaires 9: 199-213.
2004
2005
(with Stephanos Stephanides). “The Work of the Wor(l)d: Comparative Literature and Global Studies.” Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism 13: 7-19.
2006
2008
2008
2009
"Η διακριτική γοητεία του 'αναρχικού Υψηλού': Μια επανεπίσκεψη της 'κυρίαρχης εξουσίας' και της 'γυμνής ζωής.'" Μτφρ. Γιώργος Κατσαμπέκης. Σύγχρονα θέματα 113 (Απρ.-Ιουν. 2011): 50-62.
2012
“The Discreet Charm of the ‘Anarchist Sublime’: Sovereign Power and Bare Life Revisited”. In Antonis Balasopoulos ed., “Intellectuals and the State: Complicities, Confrontations, Ruptures”, Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, Stanford University.
2012
“Introduction: Intellectuals and the State: Complicities, Confrontations, Ruptures". In Antonis Balasopoulos ed., “Intellectuals and the State: Complicities, Confrontations, Ruptures”,
Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, Stanford University.
“Modernism, Utopia, and Everyday Life”. Utopian Studies (forthcoming).
Chapters in Books
1995
“Αποκωδικοποιώντας το Σκότος: Playing in the Dark.” Τόνι Μόρρισον. Επιμ. Γιώργος Καλογεράς και Δόμνα Παστουρμαντζή. Θεσσαλονίκη: Ελληνική Εταιρία Αμερικανικών Σπουδών. 163-192.
2002
Critical Introductions to Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Beyond the Floating Islands, eds. Stephanos Stephanides and Susan Bassnett. Bologna: University of Bologna/COTEPRA. 34-35, 58-60.
2007
2008
2009
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2011
"Anti-Utopia and Dystopia: Rethinking the Generic Field” (bilingual essay, Greek trans. Viky Iakovou). Utopia Project Archive, 2006-2010, ed. Vassilis Vlastaras. Athens: School of Fine Arts Publications, 2011. 59-67, 393-402.
2012
“Varieties of Lacanian anti-utopianism”. Spectres of Utopia: Theory, Practice, Conventions. Ed. Artur Blaim and Ludmila Gruszweska-Blaim. Frankfurt am Maim et al: Peter Lang, 2012. 69-80, 272-275.
2012
“On desertification and the creative powers of language: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.” Dystopia Matters: The Languages of Denunciation, ed. Fátima Vieira. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012 (forthcoming).
Essays in Selected Conference Proceedings
2001
“Writing Nation Other-Wise: Captivity and the Uses of Alterity in Royall Tyler's The Algerine Captive.” The Other Within. Vol I: Literature and Culture, ed. Ruth Parkin-Gounelas. Thessaloniki: Athanasios Altintzis. 35-48.
Translations
2009
Ayios Pavlos: To themelio tou oikoumenismou, translation of Alain Badiou, St. Paul. La fondation de l' universalisme. Unpublished.
2010
Jacques Rancière, Maître Ignorant, (translated extract). Polydromo: Journal on Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Education and Society 2 (Dec. 2009/Jan. 2010): 18-21.
2010
"Ypotheseis yia to stasimo kratos", translation of Gopal Balakrishnan, "Speculations on the Stationary State", orig. pub. New Left Review II/59, September-October 2009, in Synchrona Themata 107 (Sept. -Oct. 2009): 8-21.
2010
"Mikroastikos kai Proletariakos Socialismos," translation of V.I. Lenin, "Petty-Bourgeois and Proletarian Socialism", orig. pub. Proletary 24.7, 1905. Marxists Internet Archive.
2010
“Epanastasē kai Epanalūpsē”, translation of Kojin Karatani, “Revolution and Repetition”, orig. pub. Umbr(a): A Journal of the Unconscious, 2008. Eneken 17, July-September 2010: 48-70.
2010
“Domikes Krises”, translation of Immanuel Wallerstein, “Structural Crises”, orig. pub. New Left Review II 62, April 2010. Synchrona Themata 110 (July-September 2010), 90-96.
2010
“Oi dromoi tēs apostasias”, translation of Alain Badiou, “Roads to Renegacy”, orig. pub. New Left Review II 53 (September-October 2008) (completed Fall 2010). Unpublished.
2010
“Ē politike tou Badiou: Isotēta kai dikaiosunē”, translation of Peter Hallward, "Badiou's Politics: Equality and Justice", orig. pub. Culture Machine 4, 2002 (completed Fall 2010). Unpublished.
2010
Erik Olin Wright, “Oramatizomenoi Pragmatikes Outopies”, translation of “Envisioning Real Utopias”, orig. pub. New Left Project, 15 June 2010 (completed Summer 2010). Unpublished.
2011
Alain Badiou, “Dūo seminaria gia tēn paravoli tōn kratoumenon ston Lacan”, translation of two chapters from Théorie du sujet, Paris, Seuil, 1982 (completed Jan. 2011). Unpublished.
2011
Bruno Bosteels, “O Badiou chōris ton Zizek”, translation of “Badiou without Zizek”, Polygraph 17 (2005), The Philosophy of Alain Badiou, ed. Matthew Wilkens (completed Jan. 2011). Unpublished.
Book Reviews and Review Essays
1996
2004
2005
Review of Sterling F. Delano, Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia (Harvard University Press, 2004). European Association for American Studies Book Reviews.
2006
Review of Paola Gemme, Domesticating Foreign Struggles: The Italian Risorgimento and Antebellum American Identity (Georgia University Press, 2005). European Association for American Studies Book Reviews.
2006
Review of Lee Edelman,
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Duke University Press, 2004).
Journal of American Studies 40.2: 425-426.
2006
Review of Andrew Loman,
‘Somewhat on the Community-System’: Fourierism in the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Routledge, 2005).
Utopian Studies 17.3: 547-551.
2008
"
American Literature for a Post-American Era". Review Essay on Wai Chee Dimock and Lawrence Buell,
Shades of the Planet: American Literature as World Literature (Princeton University Press, 2007).
Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism 16. 315-321.
2009
2010
2010
Review of Jonathan Pitcher,
Excess Baggage: A Modern Theory and the Conscious Amnesia of Latin Americanist Thought (Peter Lang, 2009).
Synthesis 2 (Fall, 2010): 84-87.
2011
Review of Andrew Milner, ed.,
Tenses of Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia (Peter Lang, 2010).
European Journal of American Studies.
Other Publications
Assistant Editor, Cultures of Memory/Memories of Culture, ed. Stephanos Stephanides. Nisosia: University of Nicosia Press, 2007.
"A Brief Comment on Walter Benjamin's Theologico-political Fragment",
Shoppinghour 6 (May 2010), 23.
Creative Writing
'Ten Theses on Writing" (prose aphorisms),
Shoppinghour, Issue 2 , p. 4
"Snail" (poem) and "Thinking Things" (essay),
Shoppinghour, Issue 3, p. 4, 7.
"Thessaloniki, March 1943" and "Enemies" (poems),
Shoppinghour Issue 5, pp. 9-11.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
1998 “'Bringing it All Back Home': The Heim and the Unheimlich in Betty Mahmoudy's Not Without My Daughter.” Third International Conference of the Hellenic Association for the Study of English, Thessaloniki, Greece, 7-9 May.
1998 “Beyond the Myth of the Wild West: The Case of John Sayles and Jim Jarmusch” (in Greek). “Mass Culture in the United States,” a colloquium organized by the Hellenic Association of American Studies, Thessaloniki, Greece, 16 May.
2000 “(Dis)Figuring Labor: Cinema, Mechanization, and the Body in Edward Scissorhands and Beyond.” Presented at colloquium on critical theory, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, 15 November.
2001 “Racial Cross-dressing: Race and Otherness in an 18th-century Captivity Narrative.” Presented at the Salzburg Seminar on American Studies, Austria, 13 March.
2002 “Progress, Regression, Repetition: Reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes.” Colloque La Repetition, Université de Reims, France, 14-15 March.
2002 “'A la Recherche Du Pays Perdu': Notes on the Spatial Imaginary of Partition Literature.” Fourth International H.A.S.E Conference, Athens, Greece, 24-27 May.
2002 “Towards a Second Innocence: Dziga Vertov and Avant-Garde Utopia” (in Greek). Introduction to the Screening of Dziga Vertov's The Man With the Movie Camera, Avant- Garde and Underground Film Festival, Nicosia, 10 June.
2002 “The Representation of Limits and the Limits of Representation.” “Visualizing Nation, State and Community”: International Visual Sociology Association Conference, Santorini, Greece, 13-18 July.
2003 “Nationalizing the Continent, Americanizing the World: The Utopian Unconscious of 'American Studies.'” Invited panel presentation at “Does the United States Subsume the Idea of America?”, a colloquium organized by the Hellenic Charter of the European Association of American Studies, Athens, Greece, 21 March.
2003 “Incalculable Distance: Utopia, the 'New World,' and the Poetics of Deterritorialization.” International American Studies Association First World Congress, Leyden, Netherlands, 22-24 May.
2003 “Figures of Im/possibility: Fin-de-Siècle Utopian Fiction and the Cultural Work of Post-territorial Expansionism.” Fourth Annual Conference of the Utopian Studies Society, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain, 25-29 June.
2003 “Island Form and Utopian Fiction: Reflections on the Boundaries of a Genre.” 6th British Council Symposium on English Studies in Europe. Delphi, Greece, 7-13 September.
2004 “Transmutations of Nowhereness: Utopia in the Age of the 'Oceanic Turn.’” 5th International conference of the Utopian Studies Society, University of Porto, Portugal, 8-10 July.
2004 “By Land and Sea: Science Fiction and Imperial Geopolitics in Turn-of-the-Century America.” 29th International Conference of the Society for Utopian Studies, Toronto, Canada, 7-10 October.
2005 “Is this Philosophy? Some Remarks on the Mythical Space of Atlantis in Plato's Critias.” Hellenic Studies Workshop, Princeton University, USA, 21 January.
2005 “The Polis of Philosophy and the Polis of Politics: On the Problem of Utopia in Plato's Late Dialogues.” First Ralahine Conference on Utopian Studies, University of Limerick, College of Humanities, Ireland, 11-12 March.
2005 “Spectral Empires: U.S. Science Fiction and Expansionist Geopolitics, 1889-1899.” 50th British Association of American Studies Conference, Robinson College, Cambridge University, UK, 14-17 April.
2005 “States of Theory: History, Theory, Sovereignty” (in Greek). States of Theory: The History and Geography of Critical Narratives, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 23-25 September.
2005 “Making Place for America: U.S. Science Fiction and Expansionist Geopolitics, 1889- 1899.” American Studies Association, Washington D.C, USA, 3-6 November.
2006 “‘Ex non insula fecit insulam’: On the Poetics and Politics of Utopian Insularity” Colloque Poésie et Insularité, Department of French Studies and Modern Languages, University of Cyprus, 17-19 March.
2006 “Ghosts of the Future: Jameson, Derrida, and the Afterlife of Utopia.” Presentation at “Politics and Fidelity” Invited Symposium, 30th International Association for Philosophy and Literature Conference, Freiburg-Basel-Strasbourg, 5-10 June.
2006 Invited Participant, Roundtable on “Transcultural American Studies and Transdisciplinarity,” American Studies Association Conference, Oakland, California, USA, 12-15 October.
2006 “Ghosts of the Future: Jameson, Derrida, and the Afterlife of Utopia.” Invited lecture at the Center for Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, 16 October.
2006 “Utopiae Insulae Figura: Utopian Insularity and the Politics of Form.” Utopian Encounters III: Mapping Dreams and Nightmares, University of Porto, Portugal, 14- 15 December.
2007 “Political Animals, or, The Bare Life of Sovereignty.” International Association for Philosophy and Literature, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 4-9 June.
2007 “Science Fiction and US Imperialism 1880-1900.” Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth College, USA, 18-24 June.
2008 “Counting (with Cyprus): Parts, Partitions, Departures”, Dissecting Imperial Affect: Parts, Partitions, Departures, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 2-3 June.
2008 “Of Dogs, Angels, and Creatures in Between: Chaplin/Kafka/Benjamin/Agamben”, 9th International Utopian Studies Society Conference, University of Limerick, Ireland, 3- 5 July.
2009 "'Utopian and Cynical Elements': Chaplin, Cinema, and Weimar Critical Theory", University of Limerick, Ireland, 22 April.
2009 "New Advocates: Of Theory, Utopia, and Kafka's Animals", University of Limerick, Ireland, 23 April.
2009 "Political Animals: Critical reflections on the Homo Sacer Project" University of California, Santa Cruz and Stanford University, USA, 13-14 May
2009 "Kafka, Otherness and Generic Thresholds", 10th Utopian Studies Society Conference, University of Porto, Portugal 1-4 July
2010 “Utopia, Modernism, and Failure: Franz Kafka’s Impossibilities.” Modernism and Utopia Conference, University of Birmingham, U.K, 23-24 April.
2010 “Varieties of Lacanian anti-utopia.” Spectres of Utopia: 11th Utopian Studies Society Conference, Marie Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland, 7-10 July.
2010 “Utopia, Modernism, and the Everyday”. The Everyday: International Conference of the Hellenic Semiotic Society. University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, 5-7 November.
2011 “Crisis, Justice, Messianism: On Walter Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence’”. 12th Utopian Studies Society Conference, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, 8-11 July.
2011 “On Georges Sorel’s Reflections on Violence and its Theoretical Implications”. 12th Utopian Studies Society Conference, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, 8-11 July.
2011 “Utopia, Modernism and Everyday Life” 36th Society of Utopian Studies Conference, Penn State University, USA, 20-23 October.
2012
“On Walter Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence’” 1st Annual CYSSE Conference, University of Nicosia, Cyprus, 23 March.
2012 “On Anti-Utopianism” 36 IAPL Conference, Talinn University, Estonia, 28 May-3 June.
2012 “Utopia Gone to the Pigs?: Plato’s The Republic, 370c-372d”. 13th Utopian Studies Society Conference, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain, 4-7 July.
2012 “Fables of Revolution: Alain Badiou and Cinematic Science Fiction”, 9th Annual Historical Materialism Conference, SOAS, London, 8-11 November.
MEMBERSHIP IN EDITORIAL BOARDS AND SERVICE AS INDEPENDENT REFEREE
Member of the Editorial Board, Mesogeios, University of Cyprus Press, 2004-2007
Member of the Editorial Board, Cyprus Scientific Journal
Referee, Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology (Johns Hopkins University Press)
Referee, Comparative Literature (Duke University Press)
Referee, Utopian Studies (Penn State University Press)
Referee, Ralahine Utopian Studies (Peter Lang)
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Cyprus Society for the Study of English (President 2005-08)
Member, Utopian Studies Society (Committee member 2009-)
Member, Society for Utopian Studies
Member, Modern Language Association
Member, American Studies Association
Member, International Association of Philosophy and Literature
Member, Hellenic Association of American Studies
ORGANIZATIONAL INITIATIVES
Co-organizer, “Cultures of Memory/Memories of Culture,” CYSSE/ACUME conference Nicosia, 20-22 February 2004.
Co-organizer, “Comparative Cultural Studies and Globalization” Symposium, University of Cyprus, 19-20 November 2004.
Co-organizer, “States of Theory: History and Geography of Critical Narratives,” Nicosia, 23-25 September 2005.
Head Organizer, European Association for American Studies Biennial Conference, University of Cyprus, 7-10 April 2006.
Co-organizer of Invited Symposium “From Polis to the Camp: Polemical Modalities and Spatial Intensities of the Political,” International Association for Philosophy and Literature Conference, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 5-9 June 2007.
Organizer, International Symposium on "Intellectuals the State: Complicities, Confrontations, Ruptures", 20-21 March and 5-6 June 2009, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Organizer, Utopian Studies Society (Europe) 12th International Conference, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 2011.
COURSES TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS
Graduate Seminars
Nation and Narrative
Space and Cultural Production
The Animal in Literature and Philosophy
Undergraduate Courses
Studies in Fiction I (sophomore level)
Studies in Fiction II (sophomore level)
The English Novel I (sophomore level)
The English Novel II (sophomore level)
Seminar in American Studies I: Subjectivity and Subjection: (Un)Freedom and the Making of American Culture 1776-1865 (junior/senior seminar)
Seminar in American Studies II: Visions of Empire in American Literature and Culture 1880-1914 (junior/senior seminar)
English Literature and Culture at the Fin-de-Siècle (junior/senior seminar)
Studies in Victorian Fiction (junior/senior seminar)
Studies in 19th-Century Fiction
