Upcoming events

Details of all our upcoming events are below:

From Dragomans to Members of Parliament: The Greeks in Ottoman Politics on the Eve of the Great War

28 October 2022 at 7:00 p.m at the Council Room, King’s Building, 2.29, Strand Campus, KCL. Organisers: Centre for Hellenic Studies and The Niki Marangou Project at KCL. Co-organised with King’s Centre for Hellenic Studies. This fourth Niki Marangou Lecture will be held in London, and the featured speaker will be the former diplomat and King’s alumna, Dr Catherine Boura.

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Migration and Adoption Histories of Modern Greece

Gonda Van Steen’s 2019 book presents a committed quest to unravel and document the postwar adoption networks that placed more than 3,000 Greek children in the United States, in a movement accelerated by the aftermath of the Greek Civil War and by the new conditions of the global Cold War. Greek-to-American adoptions and, regrettably, also their transactions and transgressions, provided the blueprint for the first large-scale international adoptions, well before these became a mass phenomenon typically associated with Asian children. The story of these Greek postwar and Cold War adoptions, whose procedures ranged from legal to highly irregular, has never been told or analysed before. 'Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece' answers the important questions: How did these adoptions from Greece happen? Was there any money involved? Humanitarian rescue or kid pro quo?

Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece

Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation

We think we know ancient Greece, the civilisation that shares the same name and gave us just about everything that defines 'western' culture today, in the arts, sciences, social sciences and politics. Yet, as Greece has been brought under repeated scrutiny during the financial crises that have convulsed the country since 2010, worldwide coverage has revealed just how poorly we grasp the modern nation. This book sets out to understand the modern Greeks on their own terms. How did the Greeks come to be so powerfully attached to the legacy of the ancients in the first place, and then define an identity for themselves that is at once Greek and modern? This book reveals the remarkable achievement, during the last 300 years, of building a modern nation on, sometimes literally, the ruins of a vanished civilisation. This is the story of the Greek nation-state but also, and perhaps more fundamentally, of the collective identity that goes with it. It is not only a history of events and high politics, it is also a history of culture, of the arts, of people and of ideas. For more information click here:

Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, University of Chicago Press

Wealth, Consumption and Inequality in the Late Byzantine World, 1282-1453

Dr Dionysios Stathakopoulos studies wealth and its uses in the late Byzantine empire (1261-1453), particularly investments in afterlife management strategies such as charity and the cult of remembrance.

Cassandra and the Poetics of Prophecy in Greek and Latin Literature, by Dr Emily Pillinger

This book (Cambridge 2019) explores the miscommunications of the prophet Cassandra - cursed to prophesy the truth but never to be understood until too late - in Greek and Latin poetry. Using insights from the field of translation studies, the book focuses on the dialogic interactions that take place between the articulation and the realization of Cassandra’s prophecies in five canonical ancient texts, stretching from Aeschylus’ to Seneca’s 'Agamemnon'. These interactions are dogged by confusion and misunderstanding, but they also show a range of interested parties engaged in creatively ‘translating’ meaning for themselves from Cassandra’s ostensibly nonsensical voice. Moreover, as the figure of Cassandra is translated from one literary work into another, including into the Sibyl of Virgil’s 'Aeneid', her story of tragic communicative disability develops into an optimistic metaphor for literary canon-formation. Cassandra invites us to reconsider the status and value of even the most riddling of female prophets in ancient poetry. For more information click here:

Cassandra and the Poetics of Prophecy in Greek and Latin Literature

'Eusebius and Empire': Constructing Church and Rome in the 'Ecclesiastical History', by Dr James Corke Webster

Dr Corke Webster introduces his recent monograph (Cambridge: CUP, 2019) as follows: ‘Eusebius’ 'Ecclesiastical History', written in the early fourth century, continues to serve as our primary gateway to a crucial three hundred year period: the rise of early Christianity under the Roman Empire. 'Eusebius and Empire' is the first systematic study considering the History in the light of its fourth-century circumstances as well as its author's personal history, intellectual commitments, and literary abilities. I argue that the 'Ecclesiastical History' is not simply an attempt to record the past history of Christianity, but a sophisticated mission statement that uses events and individuals from that past to mould a new vision of Christianity tailored to Eusebius’ fourth-century context. Eusebius presents elite Graeco-Roman Christians with a picture of their faith that smooths off its rough edges and misrepresents its size, extent, nature, and relationship to Rome.' Ultimately, he suggests that Christianity was—and always had been—the Empire’s natural heir.

GRIDAMUS: Greek Identity in Art Music since the Early Nineteenth Century: Towards an Interdisciplinary Methodology

is a two-year project run by Dr Katerina Levidou, who is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow, based at the Centre for Hellenic Studies, with links to the Department of Music. The project is conceived as a contribution to understanding the strategies by which national narratives are constructed and the part played in that process by culture, and music in particular, focusing on the case of Greece and Western art (or ‘classical’) music since the early 19th century. The approach is interdisciplinary, bringing historical and cultural contextualisation into dialogue with a) critical discourses advanced during the last two to three decades, to understand and contextualise the concept of ‘Greekness’ within Modern Greek Studies and b) ethnomusicological approaches to the study of music and identity. GRIDAMUS thus proposes to offer a revisionist study of Greek art music—a repertory that remains to be investigated in depth—while, at the same time developing an interdisciplinary methodological framework that has the potential to become paradigmatic for the study of other national repertories. On 9 May 2019, Dr Katerina Levidou led the workshop 'It Sounds Greek to Me', which brought together leading experts on the expression of national identity in Greek art music, theatre studies, and literature. She is preparing her book on this research project for Routledge. In the summer and autumn of 2019, Dr Levidou gave five public lectures in Greece as well. Building on the Centre’s interest in Greek art music is the forthcoming volume entitled 'Music, Language and Identity in Greece: Defining a National Art Music in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries', co-edited by Polina Tambakaki, Panos Vlagopoulos, Katerina Levidou, and Roderick Beaton. This book will be published by Routledge in autumn 2019. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 745631. More information:

Music, Language and Identity in Greece: Defining a National Art Music in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Constructed Sainthood: The Genesis of Hagiography

This BA/Leverhulme-funded project is led by Dr James Corke Webster in collaboration with Dr Christa Gray. It has produced an edited collection, 'The Hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood' (Leiden: Brill, in press). The volume sheds fresh light on narratives about Christian holy men and women from Late Antiquity to Byzantium. Rather than focusing on the relationship between story and reality, it asks what literary choices authors made in depicting their heroes and heroines: how they positioned the narrator, how they responded to existing texts, how they utilised or transcended genre conventions for their own purposes, and how they sought to relate to their audiences. The literary focus of the chapters assembled here showcases the diversity of hagiographical texts written in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac, as well as pointing out the ongoing conversations that connect them. By asking these questions of this diverse group of texts, the book illuminates the literary development of hagiography in the late antique, Byzantine, and medieval periods.

The Springboard of Europe: Focus on Ravenna

Professor Emerita Judith Herrin has been studying the role of Ravenna in mediating the interactions between Byzantine and Western Medieval culture. Her latest book, 'Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe' (Penguin) appeared in late August 2020 and has already been acclaimed in the Financial Times and The Economist. Postponed until post-COVID times is Professor Herrin’s international conference, ‘Power and Images: Ravenna in a Comparative Perspective’. Her current work and also the future conference are generously supported by the Ahmanson Foundation. Professor Herrin also holds a three-year Visiting Senior Research Fellowship (2019-2022) in King’s Department of Classics with close ties to CHS. Initial publication: 'Ravenna: Its Role in Earlier Medieval Change and Exchange' (2016).

Niki Marangou’s Life and Work

Dr Polina Tambakaki brought to fruition a two-year postdoctoral research project on the literary work of the Cypriot writer and artist Niki Marangou (1948-2013), which was generously sponsored by the A.G. Leventis Foundation. Niki Marangou authored many books of prose, poetry and children’s fairy tales. She won the Cavafy prize for poetry in Alexandria in 1998 and again in 2008, and the poetry prize from the Athens Academy for her book 'Divan' in 2006. The volume edited by Dr Tambakaki, 'Cyprus, Female Voice and Memory in the work of Niki Marangou' (in Greek), was published by To Rodakio, Athens, in August 2019. The contributions to the volume are based on papers delivered at the similarly titled one-day conference co-organised by CHS and the British School at Athens and held in Athens on 23 September 2017. The conference was sponsored by Mr Constantis Candounas:

Niki Marangou’s Life and Work

Experiment and Exchange: Byzantine Pharmacology between East and West (ca. 1150-ca. 1450)

This Wellcome Trust funded project, carried out by Dr Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and mentored by Dr Dionysios Stathakopoulos and Professor Peregrine Horden, has placed a large number of published and unpublished Byzantine pharmacological texts in their cultural and therapeutic contexts. The main output, a forthcoming Routledge monograph entitled 'Medieval Greek Recipe Books: Four New Medical Witnesses in Context', provides the editio princeps and an English translation of four significant, previously unpublished, medieval Greek recipe books dated to between the twelfth and the fifteenth century. This book also includes a detailed examination of late Byzantine pharmacology, showing that it was far more open to outside influence than has hitherto been thought and that Byzantine physicians eagerly incorporated observations derived from their daily contact with patients. In the framework of this project, Dr Bouras-Vallianatos has also provided the first edition of the earliest surviving (early twelfth-century) Greek medical lexicon of plant names, in which he identifies Southern Italy as a significant gateway for the introduction of Arabic medical knowledge into Byzantium. As part of this project an international conference, ‘Drugs in the Medieval World (ca. 1050-ca. 1400)’, co-organised by Dr Bouras-Vallianatos and Dr Stathakopoulos, was held at King’s College London in December 2018. Fostering discussion and comparative thinking about medieval pharmacology, this conference focused on the interrelationships between the different Mediterranean traditions, including the Byzantine, Islamic and Latin Western traditions, and also on the role of minority ethno-religious groups, such as the Jews, in the process of knowledge exchange. An edited volume with selected papers given at the conference is currently under preparation. Also, Dr Bouras-Vallianatos has recently co-edited 'Greek Medical Literature and its Readers: From Hippocrates to Islam and Byzantium' (with Sophia Xenophontos; Routledge, 2018) and 'Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen' (with Barbara Zipser; Brill, 2019). He is the author of a forthcoming OUP monograph as well: 'Innovation in Byzantine Medicine: The Writings of John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275-c.1330)'. More information can be found here:

Innovation in Byzantine Medicine

Advocating Classics Education (ACE)

Research Impact Studies. Led by Professor Edith Hall, this UK-wide project aims to examine, and to champion, the availability of classical-subject qualifications across secondary schools in Britain. Professor Hall’s research has identified the sociohistorical reasons for the exclusion of state-sector secondary-education students from classical subjects, and the solutions. Since 2017, ACE has received funding from the AHRC, the Classical Association, the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, King’s College London, and also a private donor. The ACE website provides a permanent hub for discussion, sharing and dissemination of news, information, ideas and resources which further the project’s mission:

ACE

Training in Action: From Documentation to Protection of Heritage in Libya and Tunisia

Research Impact Studies. Led by Will Wootton, this project has been training 40 staff members from respective Libyan and Tunisian national heritage organisations in documentation techniques, preventative conservation and heritage. The project serves as a replicable model for Libyan and Tunisian heritage professionals to train new staff, creating a sustainable cultural protection model in turn. For more information see:

Training in Action

Ancient Inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea (Dr Irene Polinskaya)

Digital Humanities Projects (all undertaken with the support of King's Digital Laboratory). The aims of the project include a new study of all ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions originating from the Northern Coast of the Black Sea; and publication of Russian and English critical editions of the inscriptions in print and digital formats. Resultant publications: collections of Byzantine texts (2015), texts from Tyras and Chersonesos (2017).

Ancient Inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea

Inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica (Professor Emerita Charlotte Roueché)

Digital Humanities Projects (all undertaken with the support of King's Digital Laboratory). This project’s goal is to produce an online corpus of the inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica, with particular focus on plotting and displaying geographical information. Inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica is now published.

Inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica

Heritage Gazetteer of Cyprus (Dr Stuart Dunn, Dr Tassos Papacostas, Professor Emerita Charlotte Roueché)

Digital Humanities Projects (all undertaken with the support of King's Digital Laboratory). Work is ongoing to enrich this resource drawing on a wide range of sources for the island’s complex toponymy. Students from the University of Cyprus have made important contributions. We are working to facilitate contributions from a wider public.

Heritage Gazetteer of Cyprus

Heritage Gazetteer of Libya (Professor Emerita Charlotte Roueché, Dr Will Wootton)

Digital Humanities Projects (all undertaken with the support of King's Digital Laboratory). Launched in 2016, this resource continues to develop and, in 2019, added an online catalogue of the archives of the Society for Libyan Studies. Drawing on techniques used to enrich the Cyprus Gazetteer, we are working to facilitate contributions from a wider public.

Heritage Gazetteer of Libya

Digital Prosopography of the Roman Republic (DPRR) (Professor Henrik Mouritsen)

Digital Humanities Projects (all undertaken with the support of King's Digital Laboratory). This project aims to collect, analyse and present in digital form the evidence for attested members of the Roman Republican elite.

Roman Republic

GODOT: Graph of Dated Objects and Texts (Professor Emerita Charlotte Roueché, Heidelberg Academy, University of Leuven)

Digital Humanities Projects (all undertaken with the support of King's Digital Laboratory). The aim of this graph database system is to create and maintain a gazetteer of calendar dates in different calendar systems, initially those used in Greek and Roman antiquity across the Mediterranean area.

GODOT

Prosopography of the Byzantine World (Professor Emerita Charlotte Roueché, chairing the national management committee)

Digital Humanities Projects (all undertaken with the support of King's Digital Laboratory). This well-established international resource for identifying individuals in the Byzantine world between 1025 and 1204 continues to build relationships. The material has been enhanced by links to the catalogue of seals that Dumbarton Oaks is currently adding online. Discussions are underway with project teams in Vienna, Edinburgh and Ghent about developing an interconnected web of data. The first of a series of workshops funded by the British Academy was held in May 2019. In 2019 the chairmanship passed to Niels Gaul (Edinburgh). Among the collaborating partners is the Austrian Academy.