Course : Introduction to American Fiction

You are cordially invited to the 5th HELAAS Young Scholar Symposium

(free of charge)

The Age of Narratives: Expanding, Re-inventing, Re-imagining

07/03/2026

  PROGRAM
Auditorium, Library of the School of Philosophy - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

09.00-09.30 Registration (coffee/tea available on arrival)
09.30-10.00 Welcome – opening remarks

10.00-11.00 Panel 1: Revisiting Narrative Form and Cultural Memory Chair: Despoina Tantsiopoulou
Vassilis N. Delioglanis (Aristotle U of Thessaloniki): Science Fiction Narratives Revisited: Media Archaeology in Black Mirror and OBEX
Anastasia S. Saad (independent researcher): “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?”: The Narrative as the Antagonist in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton
Soultana (Tania) Karampekoglou (independent researcher): Drawing Memory: Multimodality and the Visual Politics of History in Maus and March: Book One

11.00-11.30 Coffee break

11.30-12.30 Panel 2: Narratives of Loss, Resistance, and Social Justice Chair: Anna Louri

Penny Koutsi (Aristotle U of Thessaloniki): Performing Autonomy: Theatrical Narrative as Legal and Human Rights Critique in Rachel Bublitz’s Funny, Like an Abortion
Lona Moutafidou (independent researcher): “The Wolves of Stanislav”: History, and Love, as Phantom Limbs in Paul Auster’s Baumgartner
Tanya Diamanti (independent researcher): From Beyond the Grave: Narratives of the Dead as Acts of Resistance in Shehan

Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (2022)

12.30-13.30 Roundtable discussion: Navigating Precarious Greek Realities Chair/Respondent: Lina Katsorchi
Chara Stefanidi (NKUA): Routes of Uncertainty and Transitions: A Diachronic and Narrative Approach to the Institution of Substitute Teachers in the Greek Education System
Evangelia Mourtzanou (NKUA): Victim or Survivor? Identity Construction in Victim Narratives
13.30-14.30 Lunch break
14.30-15.30 Panel 3: Narratives of Migration, Queer Identity, and Belonging Chair: Foteini Toliou
Evripidis Karavasilis (Universitat de Barcelona): “Moving Forward Sideways”: Narratives of Trans Exploration, Family Reconnection, and Queer Diaspora
Elpida Chatsiou (Vrije Universiteit Brussel): Curating Queer Memory: Narrative Mediation, Affective Authenticity, and Queer Narrative Ethics in Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dreamhouse
Alexandra Toliou (Aristotle U of Thessaloniki): From the Balkans to the U.S.: From a Utopian Narrative to the Migrant Reality
15.30-16.30 Panel 4: Crossing Media Borders Chair: Maria Giannouli
Nela Hachlerova (Masaryk U): Destabilizing Media Borders Narrative: Filmic Practices in Sam Shepard’s Drama
Niki Grigoria Karamanidou (Aristotle U of Thessaloniki): Narrating Resistance, Sovereignty and Social Injustice: Exploring Narratorial Strategies and the Promotion of Social Awareness in Alanis Obomsawin’s Trick or Treaty (2014)
17.00 Closing remarks
17.30 Departure for dinner – all participants welcome but responsible for their own meals