Professor Michael Herzfeld of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, will present a lecture entitled “Mountain Men: Masculinity and the Cretan Ethos” on Thursday 10 of August, at the Greek Centre, as a part of the Greek History and Culture Seminars, offered by the Greek Community of Melbourne.

Cretan mountain villages are famous for aggressive displays of masculinity that traditionally included barrages of gunfire at weddings, reciprocal animal-theft, swaggering bodily demonstrations of male strength, and competitive skills in singing and dancing.

In recent years, this sometimes rather romanticized cultural complex has come under considerable strain, especially as a result of violent confrontations with the police and the penetration of some villages by organized crime.

Professor Herzfeld, who, intermittently since 1974, has conducted extensive fieldwork in one of the most emblematic of these villages, will address both the earlier forms of this masculinity and the reasons for its transformation in the context of globalization and economic change.

Michael Herzfeld is Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, and currently holds visiting appointments at the Universities of Leiden and Melbourne and at Shanghai International Studies University. An advocate of ‘engaged anthropology’, he has conducted research in Greece, Italy, and Thailand on masculinity, artisanship and social knowledge, gentrification and the impact of historical conservation, nationalism, and bureaucracy. Author of eleven books -- including Evicted from Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome (2009) and Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity in Bangkok (2016) – he has also produced two ethnographic films.

When: Thursday 10 August 2017, 7.00pm
Where: Greek Centre (Delphi Bank Mez, 1678 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne)