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*Call for participants*



1st *Mataroa* Summer Seminar

* *

*Disobedience, Counter-Conduct and Political Imagination in the new
Mediterranean*



17 - 27 June 2012

*Island of Ikaria, Greece*



The *Mataroa Summer Seminar* is an experiment in creating an expansive
political experience. Its ambition is to combine the arts of debate,
analysis, and aesthetic engagement about pressing global and local
socio-political issues with the acts of participation, learning, exchange
and active immersion in the life of the island of Ikaria. It seeks to bring
together a dozen scholars, artists and thinkers from a broad
interdisciplinary background, willing to participate in ten days of both
intellectual and affective activities. Apart from their presence in these
events, the participants are expected to contribute to the exchange by
sharing work in progress with the rest of the group on the seminar topic.
The discussions are public, self-organized and do not comprise the bulk of
the program, which includes lectures by researchers of Ikaria, visits to a
host of local sites and a considerable amount of free time.



The seminar is named after the ship that in December 1945 took a number of
young leftist thinkers, artists and other professionals from Piraeus to
France via Italy, and thus effectively saved them from the perils of the
rampaging Greek Civil War (1945-48). In Paris, these refugees became
important part of an exile generation of intellectuals and heavily
contributed to the advance of global radical political thought, both before
and after May 1968. One of them was Cornelius Castoriadis, co-founder
of *Socialisme
ou Barbarie* and author of the ‘Imaginary Constitution of Society.’
Mataroa’s name and history is part of the modern political mythology of
Greece. The seminar takes up the name as a sign of recognition of the
complex trajectories of civil war, exile, resistance, the role of
intellectuals in political struggles and in the imagination of a more just,
free and egalitarian society.



The principal aim of the *1st Mataroa Summer Seminar* aim is to provide a
congenial environment within which participants will approach the
cataclysmic political events and the subsequent transformative processes
that have shaken - and continue to do so - both the Southern and the
Northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Since 2011, the entire region is
undergoing unique political processes that bring to the forefront multiple
practices of disobedience and distinct forms of the foucauldian concept of
‘counter-conduct’. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Syria have witnessed
popular revolts that demanded the “fall of the regime;” Greece, Italy and
Spain have experienced massive movements that sought direct or “real
democracy.” In the seminar, we will take on the ideas, practices and
prospects for direct democracy, civil disobedience and the political
imagination that have been witnessed within these movements. The seminar
topic and format are conceptualized broadly enough to allow for different
kinds of contributions (papers, book and film ideas, political projects).





Ikaria is known as the ‘Red Island’ of Greece. Today, most of its
inhabitants support leftist politics. Yet, the island has a complex and
distinct history that includes the ancient cult of Dionysus and the
cultivation of some of the first vineyards in the Aegean Sea, the intense
commercial links to Egypt and Asia Minor during the Ottoman reign, the
emergence of the Diasporic working class communities in the USA in the late
19th century, the declaration of the Independent Republic of Ikaria in
1912, and the transformation of the island into an exile destination for
thousands of leftists (anarchists and communists) during the Greek Civil
War. Throughout this tumultuous history, Ikarians, drawing from the
ages-old tradition of the commons, have been involved in diverse forms of
self-organization for the provision of common goods, especially in periods
of marginalization by the state. In a similar vein, Ikaria’s festivals, the
so-called ‘panigiria’, are renowned not only for their distinct aesthetic
atmosphere and rich musical tradition, but also as forms of ritualized gift
exchange and as redistributive devices of the community.

The program includes* *collective seminar sessions (paper presentations,
discussions on drafts and research ideas), as well as personal writing
slots, tandem exchanges and considerable amount of free personal time. The
collective part offers voluntary visits at a host of local sites, such as
the museum in *Cambos* and the *Mounte* Monastery; “the house of the
scorpions” (a museum site for the period of the exiles) in *Vrakades* and the
*Theoktisti* Church; the city of *Evdilos* and the mountain city of *Raches;
* the village of *Agios Polykarpos*, the “honey house”, the village of *Pezi
* and the dam, and the village of *Agios Dimitrios*. At 24th of June, the
day of the *panigiri* of Saint John, the program includes participation in
the morning ceremony in the Saint John Church and then collective visit at
the panigiri. The program also includes talks and presentations on the
Ikarian history and society, as well as meetings with local photographers,
artists and authors, such as *Christos Malahias*, a self-made ethnographer
and photographer of Ikaria, and *Konstantinos Vatougios*, founder of *
Ikariamag*.*gr*, an online socio-political portal on Ikaria. The seminar’s
main site is the village of Nas, which takes its name from a pre-Christian,
animist temple (*Naos* in Greek), which once reigned over the bay and now
lies in ruins next to the river.

*Invited presentations*

*- Talal Asad* (Distinguished Professor of Anthropology - City University
New York) **

Host researchers:

*- Maria Bareli* (Sociology Department - University of Crete) "The commons
and the gift of the Ikarian Paniyiri: Issues of Space and Time"

*- Christos Giogios* (History Department - Panteion University) “Ikaria
during the WWII occupation and the Greek Civil War”

*- Elena Mamoulaki* (School of Architecture – National Technical University
of Athens) “The unexpected Hospitality: Life and memory of the exile period
in Ikaria Island”

* *

*
*

Seminar organization: *Nikolas Kosmatopoulos* (University of
Zurich/Columbia University) in cooperation with the *Center of
Documentation, Research and Action of Ikaria* (
http://ikariandocumentation.wordpress.com)**

Communication Sponsor: *ikariamag.gr*
(*www.ikariamagr.gr*<http://www.ikariamagr.gr/>
)

Seminar Location:* Nas Village, Ikaria*<http://onestopwebshop.wordpress.com/>



*Costs*

The seminar fee (incl. accommodation, breakfast and dinner with wine)
ranges from 40 to 80 Euros a day. It varies according to status of
participants (Global South/North, Junior/Senior Scholars) and type of
accomodation (single, double rooms and studios for more people).



*Apply with a CV and a short abstract (max. 300 words) to **
[log in to unmask]* <[log in to unmask]>**

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