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Dr. Vassos Argyrou

Reader in Social Anthropology
Room:210-0 Wilberforce Building
Tel: 01482-466305
E-mail: v.argyrou@hull.ac.uk

 

Vassos Argyrou was educated at the London School of Economics (MSc Social Anthropology) and Indiana University (PhD Anthropology). Before coming to Hull, he taught for several years in the United States and Cyprus.


He has research interests in social and cultural theory, postcolonialism and postmodernism, environmentalism, religion and religious revival and Mediterranean ethnography. He carried out fieldwork in Cyprus and Greece, and held visiting appointments at the University of Ghert, Belgium and the University of Cyprus. His research has been supported by, among others, the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.  

Publications

Books

  • 2005 The Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality. New York: Berghahn Books
  • 2002 Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique. London: Pluto Press
  • 1996 Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean: The Wedding as Symbolic Struggle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (paperback edition, 2005)

Articles and Book Chapters

  • 2009. Virtualism and the logic of environmentalism, in Virtualism, Governance and Practice. J Carrier and P. West (eds.) New York: Berghahn Books.
  • 2007. The Philosopher's Gift. Critique of Anthropology 27: 301-318.
  • 2006 How Greeks think: about Turks, for example. South European Society and Politics 11:33-46
  • 2006 Reflections on an Anthropology of Cyprus, in Divided Cyprus: The everyday life of an island in conflict, Y. Papadakis, N. Peristiany and G. Welz (eds.). Bloomington, IN:Indiana University Press
  • 2003 ‘Reflexive Modernization' and Other Mythical Realities. Anthropological Theory 3:27-41
  • 2003 Theory and Practice in the Reproduction of Western Cultural Identity, in Self and Other: Conceptualizations, Identities and Practices in Greece and Cyprus,D. Gefou-Madianou (ed.). Athens: Gutenberg (in Greek)
  • 2002 Tradition, Modernity and European Hegemony in the Mediterranean. Journal of Mediterranean Studies. 12:23-42
  • 2001 The Mediterranean? Need one ask or reply? Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 10:25-38
  • 2000 Self-accountability and the Problem of Meaning, in Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy, M. Strathern (ed.). London:Routledge
  • 1999 Sameness and the Ethnological Will to Meaning. Current Anthropology 40:S29-S41
  • 1997 ‘Keep Cyprus Clean': Littering, Pollution and Otherness. Cultural Anthropology 12:159-78
  • 1996 Is ‘Closer and closer' ever close enough? De-reification, Diacritical Power, and the Specter of Evolutionism. Anthropological Quarterly 69:206-19
  • 1995 Greek Cypriot Nationalism and the Poverty of the Imagination, in Visitors, Immigrants, and Invaders in Cyprus, P. W. Wallace (ed.). Albany, NY: Institute of Cypriot Studies
  • 1993 Under a Spell: The Strategic use of magic in Greek Cypriot Society. American Ethnologist 20:256-71

Book Reviews and other contributions

  • 2005 Review of Modern Greece: A Cultural Poetics. Vangelis Calotychos. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 23:408-10
  • 2003 Review of Experiencing Dominion: Culture, Identity, and Power in the British Mediterranean. T. W. Gallant. Nations and Nationalism 9:633-34
  • 2001 (Review Essay) ‘Provincializing Europe': Reflections on questions of method and strategy. Social Anthropology 9:217-22
  • 2001 Anthropology of Magic, in International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, N. J. Smelser and P. B. Baltes (eds.). Oxford: Elsevier Science
  • 1999 Review of Faith in History: Armenians Rebuilding Community. S. P. Pattie.Cyprus Review11:117-8
  • 1997 Review of The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. L. M.Danforth. American Ethnologist 24:240-1
  • 1995 Review of Modern Greek Lessons: A Primer in Historical Constructivism. J. D.Faubion. American Anthropologists 97:416-7
  • 1993 Maronites and Armenian Cypriots, in State of the Peoples: A Global Human Report on Societies in Danger, M. Miller (project director). Boston: Beacon Press

Teaching Responsibilities

Undergraduate

  • Environment, Culture and Society
  • Magic, Ritual and Myth
  • Ethnographic Travels around the Mediterranean

Postgraduate

  • Postgraduate Workshop
  • Philosophical Issues in Social Research
  • Key Issues in Identity Politics and Policy (team-taught)

Phd Students

  • Denise Carter: The Construction of Community on the Internet (completed)
  • Jeff Smith: Youth Counter-school Culture in England and Ireland (completed)
  • Michaela Lord: British Migrants in the south of France (completed)
  • Emma Hoskins: Tradition and Modernity in Turkey
  • Kenny Archibald: Race and Backpacking Culture
  • Evi Eftychiou: Authenticity and Tourism in Cyprus