Staff profile

Dr George Vassilacopoulos

Senior Lecturer, Honours & Postgraduate Coordinator (Sem2)

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry

Humanities2, Room 216., Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

BA (Hons-La Trobe), PhD (La Trobe).

Membership of professional associations

Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. Australasian Association of Philosophy.

Area of study

Philosophy
European Studies

Brief profile

Since completing his PhD on Hegel’s philosophical system, George Vassilacopoulos has developed research interests addressing the continuities and divergences in the thought of European philosophers including Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, Husserl, Levinas and Castoriadis. The focus of this research is on the meaning and practice of communal gathering, history and otherness. George has also been working on the links between these thinkers and the history of Greek and Christian thought as well as on the role and nature of philosophical thinking in the 21st century. George also collaborates on research in the areas of critical race and whiteness theory and the history of Greek-Australian political activism, multiculturalism and foreigner discourses.


Research interests

History of Philosophy

- Critical Race and Whiteness theory

Philosophy of the Mind

- Greek and European Philosophy

Teaching units

 

PHI1GPI - Great Philosophical Ideas. PHI2MMW - The Making of the Modern Western Worldview. PHI2/3PAM - Plato and the Meaning of Being. PHI2/3BAW - Being in the World. PHI2/3CET - Why bother? Communication Ethics and Global citizenship. PHI2/3WAP - War Peace and Survival.

Recent publications

Books

 

Ashton, P, Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G eds, (2008) The Spirit of the Age: Hegel and the Fate of Thinking, Seddon, Melbourne, re.press.

 

Vassilacopoulos, G (in press) Hegel’s Science of Logic and the Order of Ethical Life. Seddon,Melbourne, re.press.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G (1999) Hegel and the Logical Structure of Love: An essay on sexualities, family and the law. Aldershot, Ashgate.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2004, From Foreigner to Citizen: Greek Migrants and Social Change in White Australia, 1897-2000, (Greek) Melbourne and Pireas, Eothinon Publications.

 

Philosophy Papers

 

Vassilacopoulos, G 2008, 'Reflections on Heidesser's Saying: "The way what is questioned essentially engages our questioning belongs to the innermost meaning of the question of being"', Heidegger and the Aesthetics of Living, Ed(s). Vrasidas Karalis, Newcastle, UK, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 142-156.

 

Vassilacopoulos, G 2007, 'Gathering and Dispersing: The Absolute Spirit in Hegel's Philosophy', Cosmos and History: the journal of natural and social philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 2-3, pp.254-275.

 

Vassilacopoulos, G 2007, 'Plato's Republic and the End of Philosophy', Philosophical Inquiry: international quarterly, Vol. XXIX, No. 1-2, pp.34-45.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2007, 'The Ego as World: Speculative Justification and the Role of the Thinker in Hegel's Philosophy', Cosmos and History: the journal of natural and social philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 2-3, pp.84-116.

 

Ashton, P, Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, 2007, 'The Spirit of the Age and the Fate of Philosophical Thinking', Cosmos and History: the journal of natural and social philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 2-3, pp.1-4.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2006, 'Philosophy and Revolution: Badiou's Infidelity to the Event', Cosmos and History, Vol. 2, No. 1-2, pp.210-225.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2005, 'On the Systemic Meaning of Meaningless Utterances: The Place of Language in Hegel's Speculative Philosophy', Cosmos and History, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.17-26.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2004, 'On the other side of xenophobia: philoxenia as the ground of refugee rights', Australian Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp.63-77.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2004, 'Racism, foreigner communities and the onto-pathology of white Australian subjectivity', Whitening Race. Essays in social and cultural criticism., Ed(s). Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Canberra, ACT, Aboriginal Studies Press, pp. 32-47. 

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2003, 'Inquiry into hope', Critical and Creative Thinking: The Australasian Journal of Philosophy in Schools, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.1-7.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2003, 'Inquiry into hope': A brief Reply, Critical and Creative Thinking: The Australasian Journal of philosophy in schools, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.16-17.

 

Applied Philosophy Papers

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2006, 'Australian Cultural Memory and the Visionary Appropriation of History', Modern Greek Studies (Australia and New Zealand), Vol. - pp.142-151.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2005, 'Rethinking the Radical Potential of the Concept of Multiculturalism', Tseen Khoo (ed(s)), The Body Politic: Racialised Political Cultures in Australia, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 24/11/2004, University of Queensland's Australian Studies Centre (ASC), http://asc.uq.edu.au/bodypolitic/, pp.1-13.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T, Vassilacopoulos, G & Kyrkilis, J 2004, 'From Epistemological Indeterminism to Ontological Integrity: Ethnicity and Generational Differences in Collaborative Life-History Writing', Auto/Biography Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 & 2, pp.275-285.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2004, 'Greek-Australian Community Development: Diversity and Solidarity in Place of Loyalty.', Kevin Brown, Jacques Boulet, Phil Connors, Linette Hawkins, Sue Kenny, Lorraine Kerr, Rosemary Leonard, Ruth Phillips(eds), Community Development Human Rights and the Grassroots: a conference to explore and celebrate the role of community development today., Deakin University, Melbourne, 14/04/2004, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia, pp.182-194.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2004, 'Indigenous and White Australians: The Ontological Encountering and the Betrayal of Thought', Susanne Schech and Ben Wadham (ed(s)), Placing Race and Localising Whiteness, Flinders University, SouthAustralia, 01/10/2004, Flinders University Press, South Australia, pp.1-7.

 

Cultural/Historical papers

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2009, 'The making of a new transnational integration discourse: The case of the Greek-Australian migrants in the 1940s’, Elizabeth Close, George Couvalis, George Franzis, Maria, Palaksoglu, Michael Tsianikas, (ed(s)), Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies. Flinders University, June 2007. Greek Research in Australia. Flinders University, 06/2007, Flinders University, Australia, pp.163-172.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2009, ‘Platon: Adelaide’s Greek Workers’ League’, Elizabeth Close, George Couvalis, George Franzis, Maria, Palaksoglu, Michael Tsianikas, (ed(s)), Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies. Flinders University, June 2007. Greek Research in Australia. Flinders University, 06/2007, Flinders University, Australia, pp.173-182.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2007, 'Struggles to Belong: Greek Migrants' Citizenship Rights', Elizabeth Close, Michael Tsianikas, George Couvalis (ed(s)), Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies. Flinders University, June 2005. Greek Research in Australia, Flinders University, 23/06/2005, Flinders University, Australia, pp.145-154.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2007, 'The Greek-Australian Unemployed Movement and the Construction of the Migrants' Rights Discourse', Elizabeth Close, Michael Tsianikas, George Couvalis (eds), Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies. Flinders University, June 2005. Greek Research in Australia. Flinders University, 23/06/2005, Flinders University, Australia, pp.135-144.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2005, 'Becoming Australians by Choice: Greek-Australian Activism in 1960s Melbourne', Go! Melbourne. Melbourne in the Sixties, Ed(s). Seamus O'Hanlon & Tanja Luckins, Melbourne, Melbourne Publishing Group Pty Ltd, pp. 245-259.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2004, 'Discursive Constructions of the Southern European Foreigner', Susanne Schech and Ben Wadham (ed(s)), Placing Race and Localising Whiteness, Flinders University, South Australia, 01/10/2003, Flinders University Press, South Australia, pp.73-81.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2005, 'Ethnicity as an Organisational Concept in the Life of the Community', Elizabeth Close, Michael Tsianikas, George Frazis (ed(s)), Greek Research in Australia, Flinders University, 11/04/2003, The Department of Languages - Modern Greek, Flinders University, Adelaide, pp.275-286.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2005, 'On the Methodology of Greek-Australian Historiography', Elizabeth Close, MichaelTsianikas, George Frazis (eds), Greek Research in Australia, Flinders University, 11/04/2003, The Department of Languages, Modern Greek, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, pp.263-274.

 

Nicolacopoulos, T & Vassilacopoulos, G 2003, 'The Making of Greek-Australian Citizenship: From Heteronomous to Autonomous Political Communities, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 11/12 pp.165-176.