Contours of White Ethnicity

Yiorgos Anagnostou is an associate professor of modern Greek and American ethnic studies at the Ohio State University. He has published widely on ethnicity and immigration in various scholarly disciplines, including ethnography, folklore, sociology, and diaspora and cultural studies.

"This is a book of great importance. Contours of White Ethnicity demonstrates a patient and very deep reflection on the past, present, and future of ethnicity in America. Its immediate subject—popular ethnography's treatment of the Greek immigrant past in America—is quite precise, but its scope is wide." (Department of Modern Greek, University of Michigan) "Though it starts with a very specific study, questioning Greek identity from antiquity to today, the book's scope becomes wider as it reflects on the past and present of ethnicity in America. The book investigates the assimilation process of Greek immigrants into American culture and explores the construction of ethnic history by revealing how and why white ethnics selectively retain, rework, or reject their pasts…. Contours of White Ethnicity is of particular interest to scholars in the humanities, ethnic studies, and social science who are researching ethnicity and race" (Journal of Folklore Research) "Anagnostou successfully analyzed Greek Americans to exemplify how this community dealt with issues of adaptation while attempting to keep true to its past.... The book can be used as a metaphor for gaining a greater understanding of other white ethnic groups." (Choice) "Contours of White Ethnicity charts new directions for the study of white ethnicities in the United States. Although it draws from the scholarship on a specific ethnic group, the study exhibits a sophisticated, interdisciplinary methodology, which makes it of particular interest to scholars researching ethnicity and race in the United States and for those charting the directions of future research for white ethnicities." (SirReadalot.org) "Yiorgos Anagnostou…demonstrates that there are many ways of being Greek American in his very new book, Contours of White Ethnicity. (Greek News)