‘I DEFEND ANARCHISM.’ DECONSTRUCTING AUTHORITY OR MYTHICIZING TERRORISM IN GREECE’S METAPOLITEFSI: THE POETRY OF KATERINA GOGOU

demetriou, demetra;

This article explores the poetry of Katerina Gogou, a Greek poet of the 1970s, as regards her engagement with anarchist terrorism in Greece’s post-dictatorship period. Gogou is perhaps one of the most celebrated poets among anarchist circles in Greece,but remains largely omitted from the literary can on. Heranti-authoritarian stance in both her life and her work invites are assessment of the political dimensions of postmodernist literary practices, which place the definition of terrorism in its formative context. Using multiple critical frameworks, the article examines Gogou’s textual and sexual politics through a post-structuralist lens. In particular, it focuses on how Gogou seeks to deconstruct those discursive regimes that produce hierarchical power relations linked to class, race, gender and sexuality. Moreover, by exploring the ways in which both the poet’s terrorist subjects and Gogou herself are transferred into the realm of myth, the article indicates how poetry enacts an alternative historicity, where the world may be re-imagined and society redeemed.