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Graduate Program in History

Athanasios (Sakis) Gekas

Degrees: 
Ph.D, University of Essex
MA, University of Essex
BA, Ionian University, Corfu
 
Current Position: 

Assistant Professor, Hellenic Heritage Foundation Chair in Modern Greek History


Recent Publications:

Journal Articles:

A Colonial Sea: The Mediterranean, 1798-1956, editor (with          Manuel Borutta), special issue in European Review of History / e Européenne d'Histoire 18.4 (forthcoming, 2011). 

2009. "Class and cosmopolitanism: the historiographical fortunes of
merchants in Eastern Mediterranean ports"
, in M. Fuhrmann and V. Kechriotis (eds.), /The late Ottoman port-cities and their inhabitants: subjectivity, urbanity, and conflicting orders/, special issue, /Mediterranean Historical Review/ 24, 2, 95-114.

2009. «Θεσμο? και Εξουσ?α στην π?λη της Κ?ρκυρας στα μ?σα του 19ου αι?να» [Institutions and Power in Corfu town in the mid-        nineteenth century], ?στωρ 15, 107-144.

2008. «Απ? την Ιστορ?α του Κ?σμου στην Παγκ?σμια Ιστορ?α ? απ? τον Ηρ?δοτο στη Μεγ?λη Απ?κλιση»["From World History to Global History or from Herodotus to the Great Divergence"], Μν?μων 29, 243-273.

2008. ‘Migrants, merchants and philanthropists; hierarchies in nineteenth-century Greek ports’ in A. Jarvis, R. Lee (eds.), Trade, Migration and Urban Networks in Port Cities c. 1640-1940, Research Series in Maritime History, 38, 109-126.  

2007. ‘Public Health in Crete under the rule of Mehmed Ali in the 1830s’, Egypt/Monde Arab 4, 3, 35-54 (with Panagiotis Krokidas).

2004. ‘The Port Jews of Corfu and the ‘Blood Libel’ of 1891: A Tale of Many Centuries and of One Event’ in Jewish Culture and History 7, 1-2, 171-196, in D. Cesarani, G. Rommain (eds), Special issue, Jew and Port Cities, 1590-1990. Commerce, Community and Cosmopolitanism.

Book Chapters:

‘Banking Expansion, Success and Failure in the British              Mediterranean; the Ionian Bank, 1840s-1930s’ (with A. Apostolides) in G. Tortella et al. (eds.), Banking in the Mediterranean: A Historical      Perspective, Ashgate (forthcoming 2010).

2009. ‘Class and national identities in the Ionian Islands under British rule’ in R. Beaton and D. Ricks (eds.), The Making of Modern Greece: Nationalism, Romanticism, and the Uses of the Past (1797-1896), Ashgate, 161-174.

2008.‘Credit, Bankruptcy and Power in the Ionian Islands under British Rule, 1815’, in K. Gratzer, D. Stiefel (eds.), History of Insolvency and Bankruptcy from an International Perspective, Södertörn academic studies 38, Huddinge, 83-118.
                       
2005. «Ελληνικ?ς π?λεις-λιμ?νια το δ?κατο ?νατο αι?να. Ιστορ?α, ιστοριογραφ?α και συγκρ?σεις» [Nineteenth-Century Greek Port           Cities.  History, Historiography and Comparisons], in L.                   Sapounaki-Drakaki (ed), Ελληνικ?ς Π?λεις στην Ιστορ?α [Greek           Cities in History], Dionikos and European Association of Urban Historians, Athens.
                       
2004. ‘The merchants of the Ionian Islands between East and West. Forming local and international networks’ in M.S. Beerbuhl and J.      Vogele (eds), Spinning the Commercial Web. International Trade,     Merchants, and Commercial Cities, c. 1640-1939, Peter Lang,         Frankfurt.

 

Working papers:

2008. ‘A sector 'most beneficial to commerce': Marine insurance companies in nineteenth-century Greek port cities’, Εntrepreneurial History Discussion Papers, 001

2007. ‘A global history of Ottoman cotton textiles, 1600-1850’, European University Institute, Max Weber Working Paper, MWP 2007/25.

2005. ‘Business Culture and Entrepreneurship in the Ionian Islands under British Rule, 1815-1864’, LSE Working Papers in Economic History, No 89.

Reviews:

2006. ‘The South Asia Textiles Industry in a Globalizing World;          8th GEHN Meeting, Pune, India, 18-20 December 2005.’  Conference review in Textile History, 37, 2, 203-04.

2005. Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou (editors) Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries of History" Economic History Services, Jul 15, 2005

Ioannis Theotokas and Gelina Harlaftis, Leadership in World Shipping. Greek Family Firms in International Business, in Business History      (forthcoming)


November 2008          
‘Failing Protection. Commissioners, Merchants and Intellectuals in the Ionian Islands under British rule’, invited talk in the seminar series of the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College, London.

June 2008                   
‘The trade-minded entrepreneurs’ (with Maria Christina Chatziioannou), International Workshop, Entrepreneurship and Culture, Haifa, Israel

June 2007                   
‘Banking Expansion, Success and Failure in the British Mediterranean; the Ionian Bank, 1840s-1930s’ in Annual Conference of the European Association of Banking History, Valetta, Malta

April 2007                   
‘Merchants into businessmen. Ionians before the ‘Ionian phase’ of Greek merchant networks’, in Moving Frontiers. Mediterranean Entangled Histories (15th-21st centuries), Volos, Greece


Courses taught recently:

 

AP/HIST 3355 6.0 A: Modern Greece: From Independence to the Present
                       
AP/HIST 4375 6.0A: Topics in Modern Greek History. Economy and Society in Mediterranean Ports.


Research Interests:

The history of class in the Eastern Mediterranean                     
British colonialism in the Mediterranean
The economic and social history of the Ionian Islands and the       Greek State

Awards/Grants: 

Max Weber Fellowship for Postdoctoral Research, 2006-08
European University Institute, Florence

Economic History Research Training Network Post-doctoral Fellowship, 2005-06, University of Warwick. Project: ‘Pan-European Economic Development’’, Jagellonian University, Krakow (awarded but turned down).

Economic History Society/Institute of Historical Research Anniversary Fellowship, 2002-03

Economic and Social Research Council Ph.D. award, 1999-2002