Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of nomadism and sexuality in Greek postmodern novels of the first two decades of the twenty-first century using methodological tools of cultural studies. Those tools are extensively employed to understand how a subject exists and what it consists of, or the very possibility of defining its existence in postmodernism or –as F. Jameson states– in the Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalism. Evidently, Foucault’s now famous saying about Deleuze, that our century will be named after him, apart from showcasing the significance of Deleuzian thought, also indicates that indeed in a capitalistic system, the capital itself acts as the social body that takes credit for production, while connecting deterritorialized flows of labor and capital and extracting a surplus from that connection.This radical suggestion of Deleuze and Guattari proclaims that even sexuality is an economical matter. In novels of Ersi Sotiropoulos, such as Zigzag Through the Bitter-Orange Trees (1999), a systematic research study of their characters is possible by applying methodologies of Contemporary Sexual Theory, Feminism and Sexual Difference, Sociology and Social Anthropology and of course traditional Literary Theory and Criticism. The characters’ behavior and approach towards sex and relationships are seldom accepted by the dominant social ideology, and can turn them into pariahs, whilst strongly proving their nomadic status in the capitalistic society of this century. Such an approach offers novel and valuable insights about modern capitalism and its intricate relationships with society and identity.