Center for Hellenic Studies

09/04/2024

On June 13 and 14, 2024, the Center for Hellenic Studies hosted 15 scholars from across the globe to compare their research on one of the most significant discoveries in Greek tragedy in nearly 60 years. In 2022, a team of archaeologists at the necropolis of Philadelphia in Egypt, led by Basem Gehad of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, unearthed from a simple grave a papyrus that contained almost 100 lines of Ino and Polyidus, otherwise lost plays by Athenian tragedian Euripides.

To learn more and read the pre-prints from the conference participants, follow the link!

On June 13 and 14, 2024, the Center for Hellenic Studies hosted 15 scholars from across the globe to compare their research on one of the most significant discoveries in Greek tragedy in nearly 60 years.

08/07/2024

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/07/consider-the-ancient-history-and-glory-of-olympics-and-the-modern-sneaker-deal/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Gazette%2020240806%20(1)

In Greece, students find intersection of academics and athletics

08/06/2024

In anticipation of the 2024 Olympic Games kicking off tomorrow in Paris, we invite you to visit the Harvard website to learn more about the participation of Mark Schiefsky, Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies and Harvard Professor, in the Olympic Flame Relay. Professor Schiefsky took part in the Olympic torch relay, carrying the flame past the CHS Greece headquarters in Nafplio as part of the journey to bring the torch to Paris for the summer games.
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The 2024 Paris Games will see members of the Harvard community continuing to contribute to the University's rich Olympic history.

🌐 https://www.harvard.edu/

06/11/2024

We are excited to welcome our Summer Fellows to campus today! Read about them here:

The CHS supports postdoctoral researchers with a variety of configurations. Fellows receive varying levels of support and may reside at the Center in Washington, DC for up to 18 weeks, depending on the scope of their proposed project. For information about CHS fellows based in Greece, see the CHS Gr...

05/13/2024

Ever wondered why Boston is often referred to as the Athens of America? Or why so many public buildings in the U.S. resemble the Parthenon? These questions are deeply intertwined with the historical phenomenon of and its impact on both art and architecture.

The Embassy of Greece, in collaboration with Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies, invites you to a lecture of Dr. Thodoris Koutsogiannis, Chief Curator of the Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, on "Philhellenic Art and Greek Revival Architecture in America".

📅 Monday, May 13, 2024
🕡 6:30 pm
📍Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies 3100 Whitehaven St NW, Washington, DC 20008

RSVP here https://tinyurl.com/ycxmxcy3

04/30/2024

Recent publication: Singers and Tales in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by: David Elmer, Peter McMurray

Available Open Access on our website! Follow the link.

Grounded in the intellectual legacies of two pioneering scholars of oral literature, Milman Parry (1902–1935) and Albert Lord (1912–1991), Singers and Tales in the Twenty-First Century gathers reflections on what the study of oral poetry might mean today across diverse poetic traditions, especially in light of ongoing global transformations that have dramatically reshaped and destabilized the very notion of tradition. This collection of essays spans disciplinary perspectives from Classics and comparative literature to musicology and anthropology. Oral traditions from ancient Greece and modern southeastern Europe, on which Parry and Lord focused, remain central in the present volume, but the book also offers important perspectives from regions beyond Europe, especially across Asia.

Grounded in the intellectual legacies of two pioneering scholars of oral literature, Milman Parry (1902–1935) and Albert Lord (1912–1991), Singers and Tales in the Twenty-First Century gathers reflections on what the study of oral poetry might mean today across diverse poetic traditions, espec...

04/18/2024

04/11/2024

Apply now for the Early Career Fellowship in Philhellenism 2024-2025

Postdoctoral researchers are invited to apply for this fellowship opportunity conducting research on topics related to Philhellenism as a movement of the 18th and 19th century as well as a phenomenon whose manifestations and repercussions persisted in the years that followed.
Application deadline: May 8, 2024

Learn more about this fellowship opportunity on our website: https://greece.chs.harvard.edu/research-fellowships/philhellenism

Εταιρεία για τον Ελληνισμό και Φιλελληνισμό

04/10/2024

Next Friday at 2pm we are holding a pedagogical workshop, Teaching Transformative Texts from Antiquity and the African Diaspora! You can join live via zoom, see more details below.

Join us Friday, April 19, at 2:00 p.m. for this pedagogical workshop, with keynote speakers Dr. Anika Prather and Dr. Carolivia Herron!

04/08/2024

Meet the 2024-25 Fellows in Hellenic Studies!

The Center for Hellenic Studies is pleased to announce the 2024-25 Fellows in Hellenic Studies. The fellowship programs encourage research of the highest quality on topics related to ancient Greece.

04/05/2024

Join us at Howard University on Thursday, April 18 for the 20th Annual Frank M. Snowden, Jr. Lecture, given by Dr. Anika Prather!

Join us for the 20th Annual Frank M. Snowden Jr. Lecture given by Dr. Anika T. Prather! The lecture will take place at Howard University's Founder Library in the Browsing Room.

03/22/2024

Free Speech, the First Amendment, and Parrhesia

Date: Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Time: 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Location: Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
27, Kirkland Street, Cambridge MA 02138

Join the zoom webinar here: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/97238271175?pwd=NTFBaVc5T1dKQTV0dk9EbHlybUZZQT09

No one has done more to shape legal interpretation of the first amendment than Floyd Abrams. Yet when Abrams litigated Citizens United, some proponents of free speech thought that this just gave big money the biggest voice. By contrast in ancient democratic Athens, parrhesia, free and frank speech, was thought to give voice to citizens who lacked power. Join Floyd Abrams and Matt Landauer and Yael Melamede in a conversation about the value of public speech and the relationship between free speech, equality and power, then and now. We will be screening excerpts from Yael Melamede’s 2023 documentary Floyd Abrams: Speaking Freely.

Organized by the Center for Hellenic Studies and the department of the Classics, Harvard University.

03/08/2024

The Center for Hellenic Studies is proud to support Medea: The Musical!

Exile, murderer, and witch—we all know of Medea’s unspeakable crimes, but not the woman. In this original production, Medea: The Musical invites you to judge Medea for yourself...after hearing her side of the story for the first time in history. Based on Seneca the Younger’s account of her mythology, Medea: The Musical gives voice to one of the most notorious women in our pop culture lexicon. Translated by Harvard College undergraduate Elena Lu with original, Hamilton-style music by Chris Ruiz and Paul Palmer, this 90-minute show promises to scandalize, entertain, and enlighten.

Medea: The Musical is presented by The Harvard Classical Club in conjunction with the Center for Hellenic Studies and Harvard’s Department of the Classics. Since its establishment in 1885, the Club has had a long-standing tradition of translating and performing Graeco-Roman plays for the public. This year, we are combining a beautiful original translation of Seneca’s Medea with Hamilton-style music composed by undergraduate artists. We believe this fusion of ancient and modern elements breathes new life into this celebrated play from antiquity.

Follow the link to reserve your ticket(s)! https://www.boxoffice.harvard.edu/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=harvard-classical-club&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=

Classics faculty members are entitled to priority seating, on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Tickets are also available to pick up for free in person at the Harvard Box Office, located in the Smith Campus Center.

Venue:
Agassiz Theater
5 James St, Cambridge, MA 02138

Show Times (Runtime: 90 Minutes)
Thursday, March 21st, 2024: door opens at 6pm / show begins at 6:30pm
Friday, March 22nd, 2024: door opens at 6pm / show begins at 6:30pm
Saturday, March 23rd, 2024: door opens at 6pm / show begins at 6:30pm

If you require accessible seating, please contact the Harvard Box Office at (617)-496-2222 or [email protected].

02/13/2024

Meet our Spring 2024 Fellows!

The CHS supports postdoctoral researchers with a variety of configurations. Fellows receive varying levels of support and may reside at the Center in Washington, DC for up to 16 weeks, depending on the scope of their proposed project. For information about CHS fellows based in Greece, see the CHS Gr...

01/18/2024

Internship opportunity for Harvard University undergraduate and graduate students

Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece and the Museum of Cycladic Art invite one Harvard College or Harvard Graduate student to spend 5 weeks (July 1 - August 4, 2024) in Athens this summer as an intern for the Museum of Cycladic Art.

Application deadline: March 3, 2024.

Learn more on our website: https://greece.chs.harvard.edu/internships/museum-cycladic

01/16/2024

Recent Publication:

Criteria of Truth: Representations of Truth and Falsehood in Hellenistic Poetry by Kathleen Kidder

Amidst conflicting information and personal experiences, how can someone distinguish between truth and falsehood? Criteria of Truth: Representations of Truth and Falsehood in Hellenistic Poetry tackles this fundamental question through a study of five Hellenistic poems dated to the third and second centuries BCE: Aratus’s Phaenomena, Nicander’s Theriaca, Callimachus’s Aetia, Apollonius of Rhodes’s Argonautica, and Lycophron’s Alexandra.

Amidst conflicting information and personal experiences, how can someone distinguish between truth and falsehood? Criteria of Truth: Representations of Truth and Falsehood in Hellenistic Poetry tackles this fundamental question through a study of five Hellenistic poems dated to the third and second....

01/10/2024

Recent Publication: The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition by Karol Zieliński

The Iliad reveals a traditional oral poetic style, but many researchers believe that the poem cannot be treated as solely a product of oral tradition. In The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition, Karol Zieliński argues that neither Homer’s unique artistry nor references to events known from other songs necessarily indicate the use of writing in its composition. The development of traditional oral cycles suggests that the Iliad is only one of many possible retellings of the story of the Trojan War, in this case with Achilles playing the role of protagonist.

The Iliad reveals a traditional oral poetic style, but many researchers believe that the poem cannot be treated as solely a product of oral tradition. In The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition, Karol Zieliński argues that neither Homer’s unique artistry nor references to events known from other so...

01/10/2024

Join us for the fifth annual K-12 Teacher Workshop, New Approaches to Ancient Authors: Caesar, Pliny, and Vergil, on Saturday, February 3.

Presentations by Christina S. Kraus, Thomas A. Thacher Professor of Latin at Yale University, and Howard faculty will be followed by group discussions and breakout sessions on adapting the material for Latin and K-12 classrooms.

In-person registration is limited and is granted on a first-come, first-served basis. Current K-12 educators will receive priority for in-person attendance.

Learn more and register below!

The fifth annual Howard University workshop in collaboration with Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies and the University of Virginia's Center for the Liberal Arts will discuss new approaches to ancient authors, specifically the Latin authors Caesar, Pliny, and Vergil.

09/28/2023

This open roundtable discussion brings together different experiences and ideas on teaching humanities to residents within prisons, domestically and abroad. We will also hear the perspective of a re-entering citizen after decades behind bars.

09/27/2023

https://youtu.be/WwAIjhoFQ2o?si=IOBQN816b00jkMqR

The Harvard Summer Program in Greece is the oldest continuously running and one of the most successful Harvard summer study abroad programs. Founded in 2002 ...

09/27/2023

Join us in celebrating Harvard's 30th president and explore nearly four centuries of leadership at the University.

09/24/2023

We are delighted to have welcomed numerous universities and educational institutions during the late spring to early fall period for their study-abroad activities in Greece and Nafplio.
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Our team at CHS Greece is open to exploring the potential of hosting programs on our premises year-round! Learn more: https://greece.chs.harvard.edu/collaborate

09/22/2023

Guest post by Catherine Mignone

09/19/2023

The Center for Hellenic Studies would like to express our sincerest condolences to the family of the late Kurt A. Raaflaub, Professor Emeritus of Classics at Brown University, CHS Fellow in 1976-1977, and co-director of the Center for Hellenic Studies from 1992-2000 alongside his wife, Deborah Boede...

09/18/2023

From The New Yorker (11/09/23): How Emily Wilson Made Homer Modern

'Some three millennia ago, a blind bard whose name in ancient Greek means “hostage” is said to have composed two masterpieces of oral poetry that still speak to us. The Iliad’s subject is death, and the Odyssey’s is survival. Both plumb the male psyche and women’s enthrallment to its bravado. “Tell the old story for our modern times,” Homer entreats his muse, in the Odyssey’s first stanza. The translator Emily Wilson took him at his word. Her radically plainspoken Odyssey, the first in English by a woman, was published six years ago. Her Iliad will be published in two weeks.'

Link to the article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/09/18/emily-wilson-profile

(📷 Hannah Whitaker for The New Yorker)

09/17/2023

Classical scholarship that engages issues of great significance to a wide range of cultural and scholarly concerns

09/16/2023

Date: Tuesday, October 31
Time: 3:00 p.m – 4:30 p.m EDT
Register!

Please join us for a selection of poetry readings and performance by Greek poet Phoebe Giannisi and Giannisi’s poet-translator Brian Sneeden, in conversation with Laura Jansen.

09/14/2023

The Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) offers three postdoctoral fellowship opportunities for the 2024-25 academic year. These programs encourage and support research of the highest quality on topics related to ancient Greek civilization.