Nicolas Demertzis is a Professor at the Department of Communication and Media Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Past Director of the National Centre for Social Research.
From 2004 until 2010 he was member of the steering committee of the Cyprus University of Technology (Lemesos), Founder and Head of the Department of Communication and Internet Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies.
From May 2010 until May 2013, he was President of the States Scholarship Foundation, Greece.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (1980) and a Ph.D. in Political Sociology from Lund University, Sweden (1986).
His major works are: “Cultural Theory and Political Culture. New Directions and Proposals” (Lund, 1985), “Culture, Modernity, Political Culture”, (Athens, 1989), co-authored with Thanos Lipowatz, “Essay on Ideology. A Dialogue between Social Theory and Psychoanalysis”, (Athens, 1994), “Local Publicity and the Press in Greece”, (Athens, 1996), “The Nationalist Discourse. Ambivalent Semantic Field and Contemporary Tendencies”, (Athens, 1996), “Emotions in Politics: The Affect Dimension in Political Tension” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
His current research interests focus on the realms of political sociology, political communication, and the sociology of emotions.
Recent Work
The Political Sociology of Emotions: Essays on Trauma and Ressentiment
Author: Nicolas Demertzis
Publisher: Routledge, 2020, 266 pages
ISBN 9780815380733
Links: Amazon; Routledge; Taylor & Francis
‘This remarkable book, informed by unusually wide-ranging and sophisticated scholarship, is highly creative theoretically. Demertzis makes cultural trauma central to a political sociology of emotions, demonstrates how ressentiment illuminates populism and nationalism, and explains how forgiveness can be a key psychological-cum-moral action for rebuilding the fractured solidarities that threaten contemporary society.’
Jeffrey C. Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University, US
Covid-19 as cultural trauma
Authors: Nicolas Demertzis and Ron Eyerman
Publisher: American Journal of Cultural Sociology (2020) 8:428–450
Links: Article;
‘This paper has two aims. The first is to introduce the concept of compressed cultural trauma, and the second is to apply the theory of cultural trauma in two case studies of the current covid-19 pandemic, Greece and Sweden. Our central question is whether the pandemic will evolve into a cultural trauma in these two countries. We believe the pandemic presents a challenge to cultural trauma theory, which the idea of compressed trauma is meant to address. We conclude that, while the ongoing covid-19 pandemic has had traumatic consequences in Sweden and Greece, it has not evolved into cultural trauma in either country..’
Nicolas Demertzis and Ron Eyerman