Elementary Modern Greek I & II
Instructor: Maria Kaliambou
An introduction to modern Greek, with emphasis on oral expression. Use of communicative activities, graded texts, written assignments, grammar drills, audiovisual material, and contemporary documents. In-depth cultural study.

Intermediate Modern Greek I & II
Instructor: Maria Kaliambou
Further development of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in modern Greek. Presentation of short research projects related to modern Greece.

Advanced Modern Greek
Instructor: Maria Kaliambou
Advanced language course intended to further develop reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, while sharpening students’ sensitivity toward modern Greek culture.

Folktale and Fairytales
Instructor: Maria Kaliambou
The course approaches, in the first part, the folktale as a genre of oral literature. Some basic concepts of the folktale and fairy tale scholarship will be discussed. The folktale will be placed in the oral literary canon by discussing and challenging the academic classifications of oral narratives. Topics such as performance, storytellers and audience will be analyzed. In the second part, the course scrutinizes the most important theoretical approaches, such as formalism, psychoanalysis, feminism and history-sociology. At the third and last part, the course will deal with the problem of orality versus literacy, as expressed in early European folk and fairy tales from Italy and France, followed by the Brothers Grimm collections through to popular chapbooks of fairy tales. The course will encourage a comparative reading of the primary texts from many European countries (German, French, Italian). However, the course will place specific focus on Greek material and will challenge the applicability or relevance of the Western European scholarship to an oral tradition of a country of the European margins such as Greece. Texts will be available in English though students are encouraged to read available material in the original language.

Modern Greek Oral Literature
Instructor: Maria Kaliambou
The course is for advanced students of modern Greek with further development in reading, writing, speaking and listening of modern Greek. Through the use of folklore texts the students will expand their cultural awareness of modern Greece. The readings cover a variety of oral literature genres, such as folktales, legends, myths, ballads, and folk songs. The main focus will be on folk and fairy tales published in Greece since the 19th century. The students will be familiarized with both the standard and idiomatic Greek. Oral presentations as well as written essays should address the cultural aspects of the readings.

The Greek Diaspora in the United States
Instructor: Maria Kaliambou
The seminar explores the history and culture of the Greek diasporic community in the United States from the end of the 19th century to the present. The Greek American experience is embedded in the larger discussion of ethnic histories that construct modern America. The seminar examines important facets of immigration history, such as community formation, institutions and associations, professional occupations, and civic engagement. It pays attention to the everyday lives of the Greek Americans as demonstrated in religious, educational, and family cultural practices. It concludes by exploring the artistic expressions of Greek immigrants as manifested in literature, music, and film production. The instructor provides a variety of primary sources (archival records, business catalogs, community albums, personal narratives, letters, audiovisual material, etc.). All primary and secondary sources are in English; however, students are encouraged to read available material in the original language.

Family in Greek Literature and Film
Instructor: George Syrimis
The structure and multiple appropriations of the family unit, with a focus on the Greek tradition. The influence of aesthetic forms, including folk literature, short stories, novels, and film, and of political ideologies such as nationalism, Marxism, and totalitarianism. Issues related to gender, sibling rivalry, dowries and other economic factors, political allegories, feminism, and sexual and social violence both within and beyond the family.

Dionysus in Modernity
Instructor: George Syrimis
Modernity’s fascination with the myth of Dionysus. Questions of agency, identity and community, and psychological integrity and the modern constitution of the self. Manifestations of Dionysus in literature, anthropology, and music; the Apollonian-Dionysiac dichotomy; twentieth-century variations of these themes in psychoanalysis, surrealism, and magical realism.

Weird Greek Wave Cinema
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course examines the cinematic production of Greece in the last fifteen years or so and looks critically at the popular term “weird Greek wave” applied to it. Noted for their absurd tropes, bizarre narratives, and quirky characters, the films question and disturb traditional gender and social roles, as well as international viewers’ expectations of national stereotypes of classical luminosity―the proverbial “Greek light”―Dionysian exuberance, or touristic leisure. Instead, these works frustrate not only a wholistic reading of Greece as a unified and coherent social construct, but also the physical or aesthetic pleasure of its landscape and its ‘quaint’ people with their insistence on grotesque, violent, or otherwise disturbing images or themes (incest, sexual otherness and violence, aggression, corporeality, and xenophobia). The course also pays particular attention on the economic and political climate of the Greek financial crisis during which these films are produced and consumed and to which they partake.

The Olympic Games, Ancient and Modern
Instructor: George Syrimis
Introduction to the history of the Olympic Games from antiquity to the present. The mythology of athletic events in ancient Greece and the ritual, political, and social ramifications of the actual competitions. The revival of the modern Olympic movement in 1896, the political investment of the Greek state at the time, and specific games as they illustrate the convergence of athletic cultures and sociopolitical transformations in the twentieth century.

Cinema of Migration
Instructor: George Syrimis
The age of Globalization has been characterized not only by an explosion in the transfer of information but also in the movement of people across the planet.  Focusing primarily on the Greek and southern European contexts, the course examines the rich and complex tradition of cinematic representations of the migrant experience. Refigured as agents of modernity, transnationalism, mobile human capital, and sexual objects, the immigrant is examined through the prisms of identify, gender, sexual exploitation and violence, nationalism and ethnicity with an emphasis on last decades of the 20th century. The course is structured around the themes of ethnicity, matrimony, sexuality, and aesthetics.

Religion and Literature: Irreverent Texts
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course focuses on the complex relationship between religion and modern literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Based mostly on the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions as these two clash in the literary texts, the course focuses on questions of modernity and tradition, the legitimacy of ritual, the relationship between church and state, the reception of antiquity, as well as the emergence of the modern discourses of gender and sexuality in light of religious practice and dogma.

Greek Poetry and Song since 1800
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course is an interdisciplinary study of the history of Greek poetry and song from the beginnings of the 19th century to the present. Through the prism of musical creation, the course examines the aesthetic, literary and intellectual debates of modern Greece, including the so-called “language question,” the professed east-west polarity of modern Greece, class and ideological conflict, the diversity of “the Greek Nation,” modernization, as well as gender and sexual politics. The course will pay attention to the structure, content, instruments, and performance contexts of Greek songs and questions the validity, political consequences, and social significance of terms such as “demotic song,” “Rebetiko,” “laika”(popular),  “entechne” (artistic), “New Wave,” “Greek Rock,” and the post 1980s-crisis generation. The course will also pay attention to cinematic works that have been formative images of Greek identity and frame a significant number of post- 1950 musical compositions. (syllabus)

The Poetry of C. P. Cavafy
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course examines the interaction between gender, sexuality, and nationalism in the poetry of C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933). Major focus is given to questions of biography and representation, disclosure and evasion, as well as to Cavafy’s aestheticism. The course explores the multiple ways in which Cavafy appeals to and simultaneously resists prevailing notions of writing, desire, language, the Classical tradition and modernity as well as his contribution to our understanding of the history and politics of Greek and gay identity in the twentieth century. Finally, the course addresses Cavafy’s legacy and formative influence on authors and poets in the English speaking world (E.M. Forster, W.H.Auden, Lawrence Durrell, James Merrill) through a reading of the re-working of his poetry in translation.

Cavafy, Forster, and Durrell: Alexandria and its Literary Progeny
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course examines the influence of Alexandria and its poet C. P. Cavafy on two English-speaking writers, E. M. Forster and Lawrence Durrell by concentrating on questions of nationalism and imperialism, sexuality and aesthetics, biography and art, as well as the topography of modernity. By focusing on Alexandria, the course investigates the authors’ fascination with the European south and the Asian east in the early to mid-twentieth century as alternative loci for modern Greek and English identities. Critical approaches include aesthetics, post-colonialism, gay and lesbian criticism, reader-audience response, as well as philosophical texts. The course will be devoted to the entire corpus of Cavafy and to the major works of the two novelists. (syllabus)

After Cavafy: Modern Literature and the Eastern Mediterranean
Instructors: Langdon Hammer and George Syrimis
The course examines the formative influence of C. P. Cavafy primarily on the Anglo-American tradition of the twentieth century by focusing on questions of nationalism and imperialism, sexuality and aesthetics, the Sapphic tradition, biography and art, the reception of Antiquity, as well as the topography of modernity. The course investigates the authors’ fascination with the eastern Mediterranean in the early to mid-twentieth century as alternative loci for modern Greek, English, and American identities. Authors covered: E. M. Forster, Durrell, Merrill, Seferis, Myrivilis, Tsarouchis, Pamuk, H. D., Woolf, and others.

Mythologies of Hellenism: Imagination and Identity in Modern Greek Culture
Instructor: George Syrimis
More than any other state founded in the 19th century, modern Greece was the effect of the profound power of myth. Whether as ‘the cradle of western civilization” or the captive maiden of ‘the sick man of Europe,’ the evolution of modern Greek society entailed a perpetual reconfiguration of its foundational myths and its long and powerful historical legacies. These legacies were partly based on internally developed paradigms of cultural continuity and partly on externally imposed western models of historical ruptures and lacunae. Where historical discourses differed and diverged, Greek creators called upon a rich repository of literary and oral myths, preserved in various forms of the Greek language, in order to negotiate and define the limits of their contemporary identity.  Greece remains to this day deeply enveloped by its mythological past so much so that even the realist literary medium par excellence, the novel, is know in Greek as

Modern Greek Poetry and Music
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course is an advanced modern Greek course structured as an interdisciplinary study of the history of Greek poetry and song from the beginnings of the 19th century to the present. Through the prism of musical creation, the course examines the aesthetic, literary and intellectual debates of modern Greece, including the so-called “language question,” the professed east-west polarity of modern Greece, class and ideological conflict, the diversity of “the Greek Nation,” modernization, as well as gender and sexual politics. The course will pay attention to the structure, content, instruments, and performance contexts of Greek songs and will question the validity, political consequences, and social significance of terms such as “demotic song,” “Rebetiko,” “laika”(popular), “entechne” (artistic), “New Wave,” “Greek Rock,” and the post 1980s-crisis generation. In addition to its thematic emphasis, the course is intended to intended to improve students’ conversation and writing skills with a focus on the acquisition of analytical and interpretive vocabulary. Focus will be on advanced grammar, linguistic registers, dialects and the ideology of modern Greek. All materials after the title “Music/Texts” will be in Greek. Discussion in class and writing assignments will be in Greek.

Modern Literature and the Eastern Mediterranean
Instructors: Langdon Hammer and George Syrimis
The course examines the formative influences of Sappho and C. P. Cavafy primarily on the Anglo-American tradition of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by focusing on questions of nationalism and imperialism, sexuality and aesthetics, the Sapphic tradition, biography and art, the reception of Antiquity, as well as the topography of modernity. The course investigates the authors’ fascination with the eastern Mediterranean in the early to mid-twentieth century as alternative loci for modern Greek, English, and American identities. Authors covered: E. M. Forster, Durrell, Merrill, Seferis, Myrivilis, Tsarouchis, Pamuk, H. D., Woolf, and others.

Receptions of Odysseus in Literature and Drama
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course examines the reception of the Homeric figure of Odysseus in ancient and the 20th century literature. Major focus is given on the traditions of Rome, Greece, Ireland and the Caribbean as well as on the reincarnations of Odysseus as a modernist figure, a postcolonial subject, and an existentialist hero. Questions of genre will be also addressed (epic, lyric, the novel, film, and drama). Major authors include Homer, Virgil, James Joyce, Nikos Kazantzakis, George Seferis, Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott, and Mary Zimmerman.

Literature and War
Instructor: George Syrimis
Based primarily on the Greek tradition, the course examines the generic origins of literature from the experience of war. Covering a range of texts from the ancient and modern traditions, we will examine genres that are either derived or respond to war as inhuman violence, honorific endeavor, necessary evil, sacred cause, or gendered conflict. We will focus on the way literature of war entails explicit and implicit figurations, interpretations, or incarnations of what it means to be human, including the self-constructions of identity through various periods of history. Genres under discussion include, epic, history, myth, romance, lyric, tragedy, and the novel. Authors include, Homer, Sappho, Herodotus, Thucydides, St. Augustine, Plutarch, Stratis Myriviles, Kazuo Ishiguro, Erich Maria Remarque.

Contemporary Greece: History, Society and Culture
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course is an interdisciplinary study of the major historical, social, and cultural events and phenomena that have shaped contemporary Greece. Particular emphasis will be paid to the changing forces that inform current perceptions of Greek identity, the Classical past, Europeanization, ethnography, ethnic and immigrant communities, the language question, as well as gender and sexuality. Cultural phenomena addressed include film, music, dance and literature. The course will be conducted in English.

Surveillance, Paranoia and the Modern State
Instructor: George Syrimis
The seminar examines the cultural and artistic reaction to the collection and control of information and the tension that arises between these practices and liberal claims to privacy rights. The course will focus primarily on literary and cinematic works whose main topic is the control of information as it is manifested in the technologies of behaviorism, the political and economic regimes of totalitarianism, liberal democracy and corporate capitalism, as well as in more theoretical speculation about the relationship between writers and authors and spectators and their objects. Though the contemporary experience is the contested arena for this debate, the majority of texts and films addressing this issue also project it onto a dystopian future. The promise of the information revolution for free and unlimited access to information harkens back to the Enlightenment’s promise of human liberation from obscurantism. Nevertheless, the art of modernity suggests that lurking behind this utopia is a state of paranoia, purposely manufactured to monitor, eliminate and ultimately forestall dissent.

Western Visions of Greece
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course examines the construction of the terms “Hellenic” and “Greece” from the Enlightenment to the present through the prism of what we have come to call “Western” culture. The course explores the relationship between adaptation and interpretation through various media (literature, film, philosophy, literary criticism) as well as the social movements that have informed our concept of the Hellenic (political, sexual, aesthetic, religious, etc.). The course addresses the way in which ancient Greek civilization was refigured as an ideal cultural template, symbolic origin, and philosophical reflection for both contemporary Greeks and European Philhellenes.

The Culture of the Cold War in Europe
Instructor: George Syrimis
The course examines the common assumption that culture mirrors or reflects its historical circumstances by focusing on the diverse ways the experience of the Cold War informs the literature and film of the period in Europe. In examining European culture during and after the Cold War, the course seeks to assess and question the interconnectedness of politics and dominant ideologies with their correlative literary and cinematic aesthetics models and with popular culture. Though the historical milieu is the primary mimetic object of such politicized art, the course argues that artistic expression also reflects and negotiates the conventions of its own tradition. At the same time it questions the cliché universality of the Cold War experience by focusing on the specific local factors and divergences of certain countries particularly in southeastern Europe. Themes explored include totalitarianism, Eurocommunism, decolonization, espionage, state surveillance, the nuclear threat, sports, propaganda, as well as literary and cinematic aesthetics.

Populism
Instructor: Paris Aslanidis
Investigation of the populist phenomenon in party systems and the social movement arena. Conceptual, historical, and methodological analyses are supported by comparative assessments of various empirical instances in the US and around the world, from populist politicians such as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, to populist social movements such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street.

The Age of Revolution
Instructor: Paris Aslanidis
The course is a comparative examination of the international dimensions of several revolutions from 1776 to 1848. It aims to explore mechanisms of diffusion, shared themes, and common visions between the revolutionary upheavals in the United States, France, Haiti, South America, Greece, and Italy. How similar and how different were these episodes? Did they emerge against a common structural and societal backdrop? Did they equally serve their ideals and liberate their people against tyranny? What was the role of women and the position of ethnic minorities in the fledgling nation-states? As the year 2021 marks the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution of 1821, special attention is given to the intricate links forged between Greek revolutionary intellectuals and their peers in Europe and other continents.

Extreme & Radical Right Movements
Instructor: Paris Aslanidis
Extreme and radical right movements and political parties are a recurrent phenomenon found in most parts of the world. Discussion of their foundational values and the causes of their continuous, even increasing, support among citizens and voters.

Comparative Populism
Instructor: Paris Aslanidis
Populism is a trending political term in Europe and the Americas, employed to denote a wide spectrum of political phenomena, originating from both right and left. The course will disambiguate this interesting concept and help students identify its presence and intensity in the political field by use of a mixture of methodological approaches. Significant current and historical instances of populist politics across Europe and the Americas will be studied comparatively, from the US Populist Party to Argentina’s Peron and Greece’s SYRIZA. Students will be given the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the distinctive nature of populist discourse through textual as well as video material.  Moreover, populism’s relationship with (liberal) democracy will be analyzed and their compatibility debated.

The Greek Civil War
Instructor: Paris Aslanidis
The Greek Civil War has been the object of considerable research as one of the major European civil wars of the twentieth century. It is closely intertwined with two signal events of the Twentieth Century, the Second World War and the Cold War. The class will offer an in-depth look into this conflict, primarily based on its considerable historiography, a good part of it which has been published in English. While we will rely on English language material (no knowledge of Greek is required), we will convey the most recent advances from the Greek-language literature as well. Besides the historiography of the Greek Civil War, this class incorporates two additional components. First, we will keep asking how this conflict fits into the larger universe of intrastate conflict cases, incorporating contemporary phenomena such as the Syrian Civil War. What are the idiosyncratic elements of the Greek Civil War and which ones are much more common across conflicts? Furthermore, how is the comparative study of civil wars useful in highlighting key dimensions of the Greek Civil War? Second, although the structure of the class is chronological, moving from the antecedents of the conflict to its long-term legacy, we will be operating at various levels of aggregation, from the international level down to the national one and on to the local/individual level. In doing so we will be relying on material coming from a variety of fields, from anthropology and fiction as well as individual memoirs.
 
Greece and the Balkans in Cold War History and Culture
Instructors: Konstantina Maragkou and George Syrimis
The course aims to familiarize students with the basic background on Cold War history as it informs the literature and film that engage with the Cold War experience of Europe. In examining European culture during and after the Cold War, the course seeks to assess the interconnectedness of politics and dominant ideologies with their correlative literary and cinematic aesthetics models and with popular culture. At the same time it questions the cliché universality of the Cold War experience by focusing on the specific operative factors and divergences of certain countries particularly in southeastern Europe. Themes explored include totalitarianism, Eurocommunism, decolonization, espionage, state surveillance, the nuclear threat, as well as literary and cinematic aesthetics.

Occupied Europe During WWII
Instructor: Konstantina Maragkou
The Second World War has been one of the most extensively studied periods of modern history. During this war, the worse ever recorded in the history of humankind, the vast part of the European continent was subjected to a long and traumatic series of foreign occupations. Against conventional wisdom in the West, which associates the occupation of Europe with the Nazi regime almost exclusively, this course aims at surveying the experience of every occupied European country under a number of different conquerors, including Stalin’s USSR and Mussolini’s Italy, as well as the Allied powers at the concluding phases of the war. Moreover, this course will not only span over the whole course of the war but would also incorporate those cases of European occupation, which although linked to the war era, took place outside the official duration of the war, for instance Czechoslovakia. Its focus will lay on surveying the national destinies and exploring the conduct and effects of occupation of the European countries under the different conquerors, although substantial emphasis will unavoidably be placed on the prevailing Nazi and USSR rule. While its emphasis will be placed on the social, cultural and political history of Europe during the Second World War, military history per se will remain in the background. The prevalent themes, which this course aspires to address, are the experience of occupation by all occupied European countries, resistance and genocide, both from the conquerors point of view and the seized countries’ angle.

Greece in the Twentieth Century
Instructor: Konstantina Maragkou
The seminar is devoted to the critical study of the landmarks in the history of Modern Greece, a country often referred to as Southern European, Balkan, Mediterranean, Near Eastern. It will examine in details aspects of Greek society, politics, economics and foreign policy during the formative twentieth century, while a synoptic study of earlier periods will be also undertaken to place the present in its proper historical context. The main aim of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of the interplay between domestic and international factors and developments in the shaping of Greece’s contemporary history and the multitude of challenges, which Greek society experienced during the 20th century.

Greece and Turkey in the Twentieth Century
Instructor: Konstantina Maragkou
This seminar traces the parallel, intertwined, and conflicting national histories of twentieth-century Greece and Turkey. It focuses on analyzing the long-standing legacy of friction that underpins the relations of the two neighboring countries and accounts for the various factors that have historically galvanized it. It places particular emphasis on the influence of nationalism and the impact of the resulting myths and narratives on nation-building and foreign policy-making, as well as major contentious bilateral issues, such as their rivalries over Cyprus and the Aegean. After placing Greek-Turkish relations in their historical context, the course will conclude with the examination of current trends and concerns, including both countries’ modernization efforts, the EU challenge, and the recently emerged geopolitical environment within which détente arose, as well as policy alternatives for the near future.

Balkan Instability in the Twentieth Century: World Wars, Civil Wars and Dictatorships
Instructor: Konstantina Maragkou
This seminar provides an overview of the political evolution of the Balkan states in the past century by surveying prevalent moments of instability in their modern history. The political, social, economic, and cultural developments, in tandem with their external dimensions and internal dynamics, that caused the outbreak of wars and establishment of authoritative regimes are analyzed to understand the underlying forces that shaped the emergence and vicissitudes of the five countries composing the current geopolitical map of the Balkan peninsula. As the struggle goes on in many Balkan countries today, although in greatly changed circumstances, and several problems can be traced to the past, the study of the origins and evolution of the nationalist movements and ethnic conflicts in the region also aspires to contribute to a better understanding of the issues currently involved. The main themes include nationalism, world wars, civil wars, fascism, and communism, with emphasis on a comparative approach of concurrent developments.

Twentieth-Century Southern European Dictatorships: Tyranny, Demise and Legacies
Instructor: Konstantina Maragkou
The seminar is two-pronged; its first part explores the historical reconstruction of various authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe by examining a handful of countries that experienced dictatorial rule in the twentieth century. Later work focuses on particular themes, including ideology, the leadership cult and culture, which will be comparatively examined. Concluding sessions revolve around those regimes’ legacies and the democratization process, and also focus on their domestic and international contexts, the role of NGOs and international organizations, and on memory and reconciliation.

The Cold War in Europe
Instructor: Konstantina Maragkou
A survey of the phenomenal superpower conflict for global hegemony, from a European point of view, focuses on its origins, effects, and dynamics on the Continent. It covers the period from the end of World War II and the coming of the Cold War to the détente which culminated in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Selected topics vary from the study of specific Cold War crises in a number of European countries to the exploration of broader themes. It aims to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of the causative factors that drove Cold War politics in Europe and provide a familiarization with the controversies and interpretations of its historiography. Finally, it offers a foundation for more advanced work in general Cold War history and in national history, as more declassified material becomes available.

History of the Balkans Since 1939
Instructor: Irene Karamouzis
The seminar provides an overview of the political, social and economic evolution of the Balkan states since 1939. To do so, it will invoke three main themes that will also facilitate insight into the interaction between the global, regional, and country specific. Firstly, the course will explore the regional and inter-bloc dynamics within the structured Cold War system by looking at the impact the Cold War had on the region and, in turn, at the influence the Balkans, in particular the Greek Civil War and Yugoslavia’s conflict with the USSR exercised on the institutionalization and the dynamics of the Cold War during its nascent decade. Secondly, the course will look into the unique role Yugoslavia played in the creation of the alternatives and challenges to the bipolar structure and rigidity of the Cold War world, namely the Non-aligned Movement. Thirdly, the course will offer insight into the dramatic impact the end of the Cold War on the developments in the region, in particular on the collapse of the Yugoslav federation.

History of European Integration
Instructor: Irene Karamouzis
The purpose of this course is to survey the history of Western Europe’s most prevalent post-World War II development, - and arguably the most exciting and controversial ensuing political experiment, namely European Integration. Particular care will be placed on relating this process to wider historical developments, most importantly the Cold War. After examining the pre-WWII antecedents of European Integration and establishing the extent to which the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War contributed to the early stages of European integration leading up to the signing of the Treaties of Rome, the seminar will proceed with examining its development from the foundation of the European Communities to the establishment of the European Union. Through the evaluation of the evolutionary process of European integration, this seminar will assert that there were multiple moments when the European integration and the Cold war did influence each other; hence, the development of neither can be fully understood without reference to the other.

Venice and Byzantium
Instructor: Robert Nelson
The history of Venice’s artistic interactions with Byzantium. While that history spanned the centuries of the Middle Ages and the Mediterranean east of Venice, the course focuses on Venice itself and the political, religious, and artistic uses it made of Byzantine artifacts during and after the medieval period.

Byzantion, Constantinople, Istanbul
Instructor: Robert Nelson
Byzantion, Constantinople, Istanbul, one city by three names, straddles Europe and Asia. The life and monuments of one of the world’s most interesting and beautiful cities from antiquity to the present, Homer to Pamuk, and church to mosque to secularism.

Medieval Revivals
Instructor: Robert Nelson
In some senses, the Middle Ages never ceased. Cathedrals continued to be used, manuscripts preserved and treasured, liturgies celebrated. In another sense, the term itself suggests something in the past, and after the Renaissance and especially the Enlightenment, the medieval period again gained favor. This course looks at the creation and collecting of medieval art from the eighteenth into the twentieth century for its contributions to the art and architecture of those years and the impact upon scholarship of medieval art.

Art of Byzantium, 850-1200
Instructor: Robert Nelson
A survey of the art of Byzantium, a multinational empire that considered itself the direct successor to ancient Rome. Mosaics, churches, icons, enamels, silks, and carved ivories are placed in the context of the empire, the theology of religious images, and the history of devotional practices.

Byzantium and Italy
Instructor: Robert Nelson
According to Vasari, the rude, crude art that we call Byzantine was surpassed by Cimabue and Giotto. This paradigm that persisted for centuries was challenged in the twentieth century by Byzantinists, who argued the superiority of their art, while others contended that both cultures were part of a larger medieval art of the Mediterranean. These perspectives, however, devote little attention to the uses that Italian artists and larger societies made of the foreign and ignore the impact of Italians in the Eastern Mediterranean. Topics include the creation of public space, spolia, palace architecture, aristocratic dress, kingship, and icon and the rise of panel painting in Italy. General theoretical issues at play are the power of icons, cultural identity, cultural interaction, the social status of the foreign, and European colonialism before its expansion in the sixteenth century.

Word and Image in Byzantium
Instructor: Robert Nelson
Word and image studies are a burgeoning field of art history and now have their own journal. This course looks generally at that literature and focuses on the Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire to consider the nature of words combined with images. Topics of interest are ekphrasis or the description of a work of art, inscriptions around works of art, and especially manuscript illumination, an area of sustained interest of Anglo-American scholars and historically the most popular subject of scholarship on Byzantine art. More attention has been paid lately to the image or icon, and this work needs to be integrated with a reconsideration of the nature of written and oral discourse.

Themes in Modern Greek History
Instructor: Dimitris Kastritsis
This seminar explores the history of modern Greece from its roots in the Ottoman period to the present day. The organization is both chronological and thematic, and focuses on key external and internal struggles that shaped the development of the modern Greek state and its culture, such as the Greek War of Independence, Balkan Wars, Asia Minor Catastrophe, WWII and Civil War. Specific themes to be examined include Greece’s relationship with Turkey and other neighbors, modernization and urbanization, and the status of minorities. Throughout the semester we will grapple with the question of historical memory and its role in shaping national identity. Sources include treaties and other documents, memoirs, literary accounts, and studies, all of which will be examined critically in order to understand the underlying political agendas. (syllabus)

The Ottoman Empire: Political Legacies, Imperial Realities
Instructor: Dimitris Kastritsis
This course is an introductory survey of Ottoman history from the Empire’s beginnings in Medieval Anatolia to its collapse after World War I. The first half of the course examines the rise of the Ottomans at a time of cultural pluralism and political fragmentation; the struggle for centralization that ended with the capture of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror (1453); the Empire’s expansion in the sixteenth century under Selim I and Süleyman the Magnificent; and the character and functioning of Ottoman society and administration in the classical period. The second half of the course examines the question of Ottoman decline; the Empire’s struggle to maintain its superpower status in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; changes in land tenure and military institutions; the place of the Ottoman Empire in the world economy; the rise of independent magnates and the influence of nationalist movements; and finally, the central government’s attempt to respond to internal and external challenges through reform. Throughout the course, we will endeavor to understand how the culture and history of the Ottoman Empire has left its mark on the many modern states that used to be part of it.

Minorities and Majorities in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1700-2000
Instructor: Christine Philiou
In this seminar we will explore the transition in the eastern Mediterranean from Ottoman Empire to multiple nation-states from the vantage points of national majorities and minorities, focusing in particular on the port-cities of Istanbul, Izmir/Smyrna, Thessaloniki/Salonika, Alexandria, and Tel Aviv/Jaffa.  We will begin with a consideration of national narratives and the definitions/contexts of cosmopolitanism and minorities.  We will then read a variety of primary and secondary sources on particular cities.  There will be five major sets of issues throughout the semester: comparative nation/state formation of Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Israel/Palestine out of the Ottoman Empire and British Mandate (in the case of the latter two), the predicament of minorities in these twentieth-century nation-states and port-cities, the differences and similarities between local/urban and national history and from one city to another, and memory and the question of late twentieth-century nostalgia for a cosmopolitan past.  While the weekly readings will proceed in roughly chronological order, these major themes will reemerge at several points in the semester.
 
Modern Greece, Hellenism, and Turkey
Instructor: Christine Philliou
In this seminar we will explore the conflicting, overlapping, and parallel national histories of Greece and Turkey in the 19th and 20th century.  We will begin with a consideration of national narratives in general and of Greece and Turkey in particular.  We will then read a variety of primary sources (personal memoirs and autobiographies, diplomatic correspondence, travel narratives, treaties and state documents, literature/poetry).  There will be five sets of issues throughout the semester: comparative nation/state formation (in the 19th century and around the common watershed of 1922), the predicament of minorities in Greece and Turkey after 1922, the differences and similarities between local/urban and national history (for Athens, Istanbul, Izmir, and Thessaloniki, for instance), the question of national belonging to larger political and cultural/civilizational entities (such as the Middle East, Balkans, Mediterranean, and the European Union), and recent changes in national memory.  While the weekly readings will proceed in roughly chronological order, these major themes will reemerge at several points in the semester.

Hellenic Philosophical Theology
Instructor: Keimpe Algra

The Modern Olympics
Instructor: Theodore Bromund
This Group II lecture course will meet twice per week, with one additional section meeting per week.  It will survey the history of both the ancient Olympic Games, which were held from 776 BC to 393 AD, and the modern Games, which began in 1896 and will continue in Summer 2004 in Athens. (syllabus)

Mother, Daughter, Empress, Nun: Women’s Lives in the Eastern Mediterranean
Instructor: Christina Ewald
The course focuses on women’s roles in Byzantine and modern Greek society (from the 4th century AD to the present) and explores the lives of women in the larger Mediterranean and Balkan context. Although Greece is a patriarchical society as are most traditional Mediterranean cultures, women have since Byzantine times has powerful roles in the home and in public as mothers, saints/nuns, and political leaders. If the role of women has been downplayed in official historiography, popular culture has amply acknowledged the importance of women by showcasing them as central players in every significant event of life.

Cyprus and the Balkans: Conflict at Europe’s Periphery
Instructor: Nicholas Sambanis
Analysis of the causes and consequences of violent political conflict in Cyprus and Bosnia. The origins, intensity, duration, and termination of these two conflicts in comparative perspective; strategies for the resolution of ethnic conflicts on Europe’s periphery.

Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Death: Aspects of Byzantine and Modern Greek Private Life
Instructor: Christina Katsougiannopoulou-Ewald
The course provides a general introduction to rituals and ceremonies of private life in Byzantine and early Modern Greek culture (4th to 19th cent.). We will focus on the rites of passage that determined the life of the Byzantines and modern Greeks: birth, marriage and death were not only biological facts but also social events to which the community responded through a series of rituals. These important stages of a Byzantine’s and Greek’s life were always accompanied by the rituals of religious liturgy as  well as by a series of festivities. A prolific literary and musical tradition (songs, laments) and a sophisticated material culture (for example jewelry, textiles, furniture) are connected with these rituals. Besides texts and archaeological data we will also use audio-visual material in order to fully understand the function and meaning of ritual in Byzantine and Modern Greek  society.
 
Cultures, Histories, and Passions in South East Europe
Instructor: Anastasia Karakasidou
The course will familiarize students with the “ethnographic islands” of the southeaster region of Europe within the “currents of history.” Primarily, the course will be dedicated to the anthropological analysis of a number of different genres that describe and represent the region. We will read authoritative historical studies, as well as short stories, poetry, books of travel and fiction. Films will also be recommended or viewing and discussion. Our intention is to consider the various qualities and possibilities offered by each of genre to our understanding of the societies situated at the southeast corner of Europe. The cultural diversity of the area will therefore be examined both as a historical and as a contemporary phenomenon.  We will consider the legacy of the classical world, the impact of Islam, the emergence of European commercial empires and the socialist experiments in the hinterlands. Ethnographic analysis of such phenomena as the construction of the agricultural peasant, the notions of shame and honor, the urban-rural divide, and the depopulation of the agricultural areas during modern times will follow. The course will end with a critical overview of the politics of continuity and the resurgence of Balkan nationalisms and Balkanisms during the last decade of the twentieth century.

Mediterranean Folktales
Instructor: Anna Stavrakopoulou
A large number of folktales will be studied in this seminar from a comparative perspective, with an emphasis on Greek material. Following an introduction on the methods of composition and dissemination, the tales will be discussed according to various analytical approaches (feminism, formalism, linguistics, psychoanalysis, etc.). The seminar does not have any prerequisites and familiarity with the material will be achieved through a survey of theories and an acquaintance with the tales from various geographical areas and traditions. During each weekly meeting the discussion will be focusing on theoretical topics for the first hour, and then specific tales will be analyzed along the lines set by the theoretical approach of the week.

Greece and the Modern Imagination
Instructor: Stathis Gourgouris
This course reopens the long-term debate on the symbolic significance of things “Hellenic” in the construction of modernity in the so-called ‘Western’ world. Covering a range from the Enlightenment and Romanticism to contemporary manifestations, we will examine texts that are either derived from or respond to the Hellenic, whether as mimetic ideal, symbolic inspiration, narrative location, or occasion for cultural reflection. We will explore ways in which the “Greeks” have been constructed in various national contexts through explicit figurations, interpretations, or incarnations of the Hellenic, including the self-constructions of contemporary Greeks as response to European Philhellenism. Theoretical emphasis will be placed in the relation between aesthetics and politics, from the Age of Revolution to the Age of Empire, from the early nationalist imagination to contemporary “Culture Wars.” Material will be drawn primarily from literature and philosophy, but will also include travel literature, historiography, and political theory.

Wars, Conflicts and their Memory
The course offers a comparative analysis of violent events and their remembering in the present.  It attempts to show the limits of current representations of these events in societies under study.  It analyses the ways collective and individuals memories are shaped and reshaped by the national, social, and individual choices and subjective interpretations. It aims at underlying the similarities and differences of remembering and forgetting in different national and international frameworks. Each week a general theoretical framework will be discussed and a specific case study will follow. The course will focus on the memory of genocides, interstate wars, civil wars, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, etc. Case studies will be the American Civil War, the French Revolution, the Vietnam War, the two world wars, the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, Algeria, Ireland, the Vichy France and others. A large part of the seminar will be devoted to discussion and use of visual sources, as art works, documentaries and films.