Billie Mitsikakos is a DPhil Candidate in Medieval and Modern Languages at Merton College, while he is one of the co-convenors of the TORCH funded network Queer Intersections Oxford. Before coming to Oxford, he studied Modern Greek and General and Comparative Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and at the Sorbonne.
Billie’s research stands at the confluence of Queer Theory, Cultural Studies, and Modern Greek Studies. His DPhil project, tentatively entitled ‘C. P. Cavafy and the Art of Queer Survival’, ventures to cast light on the affordances of cultural texts and of the aesthetic as anchors for queer survival. Taking C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933) and his queer afterlives as its primary case study, it sets out to explore and furnish a theoretical toolkit for queer survival as an affectively motivated, critical, readerly, and writerly enterprise.
Conference Papers
1. ‘Sleeping with Cavafy, Surviving Seriality’, Greek Studies Now: Agonistic Realisms. 3rd Conference of the Cultural Analysis Network Greek Studies Now, Greek Studies Now Cultural Analysis Network, Durham University (13-15/07/2023)
2. ‘“Dangerous”: C. P. Cavafy and the Art of Queer Survival’, Greek Studies Now: Local Cases, Global Debates. 2nd Conference of the Cultural Analysis Network Greek Studies Now, Greek Studies Now Cultural Analysis Network, University of Amsterdam (15-17/06/2022): see the published version of the paper in the blog post (08/02/2023).
3. ‘Queer Survival: Perverse Readers, Haunted Writers, and C. P. Cavafy’, Research Lunch organized by Queer Intersections Oxford (TORCH / University of Oxford, 08/11/2022).
4. ‘The “Flaming”: Reading Insults Through Cavafy’, The 2022 Society of Modern Greek Studies Research Colloquium, Royal Holloway, University of London (03/10/2022).
5. ‘“For Cavafy’s Sake”: The Queer Art Of / The Art of Queer Survival’, International Cavafy Summer School 2022: ‘Cavafy Mediated’, Onassis Foundation, Athens (10-17/07/2022).
6. ‘“You’ll Never Walk Alone”: Flânerie and Queer Textuality in C. P. Cavafy and Andreas Aggelakis’, The 2021 Society of Modern Greek Studies Research Colloquium, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages (Sub-faculty of Byzantine and Modern Greek), University of Oxford (08/10/2021).
Discussions, Roundtables, and Public Engagement
1. (with Alice Parrinello and Elly Walters), ‘Édouard Louis in Conversation with Queer Intersections Oxford’ (31/05/2023, online event), organized by Queer Intersections Oxford (TORCH / University of Oxford).
2. ‘Queering Academia: Safe Spaces From Universities to Society’ (16/11/2022, online event), organised by EROSS@DCU (Dublin City University, Ireland) and PHYL.IS, the Student Union for Gender Equality (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece).
Poetry
Pieces of Billie's poetry in Greek have appeared in the Anthology of Modern Greek Queer Poetry, on the platform of the collective Saligari and in their special issue on the lockdowns during COVID.