Events Calendar – British School at Athens
Aerial view of Gyaros, the infamous and lonely island of exile. By Olaf Tausch – Own work, CC BY 3.0,
BSA Friends’ lecture
Dr Huw Halstead (Dr Huw Halstead), ‘Loneliness and Solitude in the Colonels’ Greece, 1967-1974’
Abstract:
In this paper, I offer a quiet history of the Colonels’ regime in Greece (1967-1974) by focusing on times and spaces in which people found themselves alone under dictatorial rule. Drawing on oral testimonies, I explore both experiences of loneliness and practices of solitude. I discuss how dictatorial regimes cultivate popular loneliness both directly (through means such as exile, imprisonment, or solitary confinement) and indirectly (by polluting the social bonds that tie people together). At the same time, I also demonstrate the capacity for bottom-up practices of solitude to push back against this imposed loneliness, to create distance between the individual and dictatorial power, and even to strengthen social bonds despite dictatorial interference.
Bio: Dr Huw Halstead is Lecturer in Public History in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on memory, public history, and everyday life. He is author of the book Greeks without Greece: Homelands, Belonging, and Memory amongst the Expatriated Greeks of Turkey (Routledge, 2019) and co-editor of the book Miniatures: A Reader in the History of Everyday Life (University of Exeter Press, 2025.
Online only.
Registration link available soon.
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When: 8 December @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm GMT
Where: Online only – –