George Mantzios PhD

Title: Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Office: B 349Q
Email: gmantzios@mtroyal.ca 

Education:
Ph.D. Anthropology
University of Toronto, Canada
Dissertation: Future Past Due: Ruination, Speculation, and the Work of Defacement in Austerity Greece

M.A. Anthropology
University of Toronto

B.Sc. Psychology and Philosophy
University of Toronto

Research Interests: 
Speculation, ruination, urban infrastructure, national monuments, defacement, political aesthetics, collective memory, cultural heritage, reparative justice, anthropology of temporality and history, conspiracy, financialization, political anthropology, decolonization, Cold War, Greece 

Research profile:
My research examines how contested national monuments and major infrastructure projects become sites of struggle over historical justice, collective memory, and cultural heritage. I focus on the aesthetics and politics of historical redress in contemporary Greece, with case studies ranging from the defacement and toppling of public monuments to grassroots archival activism and urban redevelopment plans, with particular attention to the afterlives of Athens’ former Ellinikon International Airport.

I earned my PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Toronto in 2023 and recently held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Princeton University’s Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies (2024-25). My work sits at the intersection of anthropology, history, and critical theory, contributing to debates on cultural heritage, public memory, and restorative justice.

Beyond my research, I am the Associate Director of the Pelion Summer Lab for Cultural Theory and Experimental Humanities, an interdisciplinary program in Greece that brings together artists, scholars, and activists to experiment with new modes of knowledge-making. My teaching at MRU emphasizes decolonial and collaborative approaches, encouraging students to think critically about culture, power, and history in relation to contemporary social and political issues.

Teaching Interests:
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography, History of Anthropology, Anthropology of Monuments and Memory, Anthropology of Conspiracy, Anthropology of Violence and the State

Selected Publications:
Mantzios, George. “Cold War Image-Myths: A Crime Scene Ethnography of Defacement and Historical Redress from Athens, Greece.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 24, no. 5 (2021): 749–66.

Mantzios, George, and Nicholas Smith. “The Bystander and the Passerby: Reflections on Ethnographic Writing and Response-Ability.” Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 90 (2021): 120–27.