Colloquium: Philhellenism and Greek Identity Formation in Literature, the Arts, and Scholarship

In honour of Roderick Beaton, Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature, King’s College London

Roderick Beaton grew up in Edinburgh and studied English Literature at Peterhouse, Cambridge, before turning to Modern Greek as the subject of his doctorate, also at Cambridge – and at the British School at Athens. After a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Birmingham he embarked on a long career at King’s College London, first as Lecturer in Modern Greek Language and Literature (1981-88), later as Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature (1988-2018), and since then as Emeritus Koraes Professor. From 2012 to 2018 he also served as Director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s, and from September to December 2021 as A.G. Leventis Visiting Professor in Greek at the University of Edinburgh.

Roderick is the author of many books and articles about aspects of the Greek-speaking world from the twelfth century to the present day, including An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature (1994); George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel. A Biography (2003); Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution (2013); and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation (2019, now a Penguin paperback). All four of these books won the prestigious Runciman Award (through the Anglo-Hellenic League) for best book on the Hellenic world. His latest book, The Greeks: A Global History, offers an overview of Greek history from the Bronze Age to the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution in 2021. This book will be presented at the colloquium.

Roderick is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA, 2013), a Fellow of King’s College (FKC, 2018), Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic (2019), and (from 2022 to 2026) Chair of Council at the British School of Athens.