Home » Spyros Gangas

Spyros Gangas

Arts and Creative Industries

BA, Deree – The American College of Greece; PhD, The University of Edinburgh

Spyros Gangas, PhD, holds a BA in Sociology from Deree and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Edinburgh. Spyros joined the Deree Sociology Department in 1999 and served as Head of the Department for two consecutive terms until 2017. He has also taught at the University of Wales (College of Cardiff), at Panteion University (Athens) and at Kobe College in Japan. His research focuses on classical and contemporary sociological theory, capability approach, value-theory, and film studies. He is the author of Sociological Theory and the Capability Approach (Routledge, 2019) and co-author (with Georgia Lagoumitzi) of Sociology in Greece: Its History and Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). His work has also appeared in: Current Sociology, History of the Human Sciences, Human Studies, Journal of Classical Sociology, Social Science Information, Hegel-Jahrbuch, The Journal of the Faculty of Letters of Tokyo University and in the Greek journals Axiologika, Deukalion and Momentum. He has written on film theory, on Japanese cinema and writes film commentaries for the Greek blog cinephilia.gr and the journal To Dendro. He is the author of a book on Durkheim in Greek, has co-edited (with Kostas Th. Kalfopoulos) a volume of translated essays by Georg Simmel in Greek, and has contributed book chapters to edited volumes with Greek and international publishers (Routledge, Palgrave, Brill). He has also presented papers at conferences organized by the International Sociological Association, the European Sociological Association and the Hellenic Sociological Society.

Selected Publications

Authored Books

  • Gangas, Spiros & Lagoumitzi, Georgia. Sociology in Greece: Its History and Development. Palgrave/Springer., 2022 [ISBN: 978-3-031-16189-6].
  • Gangas, Spiros. Sociological Theory and the Capability Approach. London: Routledge, 2020 [ISBN: 978-1-138-48869-4].
  • Gangas, Spiros. Society and Morality: Values and Modernity in the Sociology and Philosophy of Émile Durkheim, Athens: Sakis Karagiorgas Foundation (Scientific Library Series), 2009 (in Greek).  [ISBN: 978-960-7087-32-4].

Edited Book

  • Gangas, Spiros & Kalfopoulos, Kostas (Eds.). Simmel, Georg. Wandering through Modernity. Sociological, Philosophical and Aesthetic Essays. (Trans. G. Sagriotis & O. Stathatou). Athens: Alexandria Publishers, 2004 [in Greek] [ISBN: 960-221-256-X].

Journal Articles

  • Gangas, Spiros. “From Agency to Capabilities: Sen and Sociological Theory”, Current Sociology, 64(1): 22-40. [London, Thousand Oakes, CA and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2016]).
  • Gangas, Spiros. “From Alienation to Capability Deprivation: Reconstructing a Sociological Concept”, Social Science Information 53 (1): 54-75, (London, Thousand Oakes, CA and New Delhi: SAGE Publications), 2014
  • Gangas, Spiros. “Japanese Cinema: Visual Style and the Dialectics of Home”, JTLA, Journal of the Faculty of Letters (The University of Tokyo, Aesthetics), Vol. 35: 71-100 [in English], 2010 [ISSN: 0386-2593].
  • Gangas, Spiros. “Social Ethics and Logic: Rethinking Durkheim through Hegel”, Journal of Classical Sociology, 7(3): 315-338 (London, Thousand Oakes, CA and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2007) [in English] [ISSN: 1468-795X].

Book Chapters

  • Gangas, Spiros. “Cinematic Fragments of Modernity: Film and Society Revisited”, pp. 67-78. In: The Detective of Modernity: Essays on the Work of David Frisby (eds. Georgia Giannakopoulou and Graeme Gilloch) London: Routledge, 2021. [ISBN: 978-0-367-19256-3].
  • Gangas, Spiros. “Recognition, Social Systems and Critical Theory”, pp. 547-565. In: The Handbook of Critical Theory (ed. Michael Thompson), Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. [ISBN: 978-1-137-55800-8]