Centre for Hellenic Studies Newsletter 30 December 2019 Director’s Report The year 2019 started off strong with a fascinating, well-attended Biography of a Modern Nation, will help shape the many ways Runciman Lecture, given by Professor Richard P. Martin in which Greece and the Greek diaspora will be celebrating the (Stanford University). Over the summer, the Arts & Humanities bicentenary of the Greek Revolution in 2021. Research Institute (AHRI) and CHS collaborated closely to A student group visited Athens and Rhodes during the last week overhaul the Centre’s webpages and to upload another rich events of October 2019. Their trip was generously sponsored by the list for the new academic year. Our autumn semester started with Jamie Rumble Memorial Fund. Pictures from their trip and their a celebration. On 30 September colleagues and CHS friends and many adventures grace this newsletter. One of the highlights of donors came out in strong numbers to congratulate Emeritus the tour was a guided visit of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Koraes Professor Roderick Beaton on the special distinction Cultural Center. Also exciting was their meeting, in a classroom he received a couple of weeks earlier (on 9 September): in a setting, with students and peers from the University of the Aegean special award ceremony held at the presidential mansion, Mr Rhodes campus. The trip was an intrinsic part of our newly Prokopis Pavlopoulos, President of the Hellenic Republic, designed BA and MA module, ‘Engaging Greece: Experiencing bestowed on him the Medal of the Commander of the Order the Past and Responding to the Present’. of Honour (Παράσηµο του Ταξιάρχη του Τάγµατος της Meanwhile, plans are under way to celebrate the bicentenary Τιµής). This honour could not be more well-deserved, after of 2021 with a range of events. Our collaborative initiative is Professor Beaton’s decades-long dedication to scholarship, called ‘21 in 21: Celebrating 2021 in 21 Encounters’, and it teaching, mentoring, and service. It brings special distinction to draws in partners across Greece and the United Kingdom. The the Koraes Chair as well. The President singled out Professor activities on off er will be designed to engage broad audiences of Beaton’s exceptional contributions to the study of the formation non-specialists as well as specialists. Also, these collaborative, of Greek national consciousness and of Byzantium’s role in the interactive events must leave legacies of critical debate, published creation of the characteristic legacies of the Renaissance. He work, fi lmed events, archival advances and research capacities. also praised Professor Beaton’s pioneering biography of the poet Stay tuned! George Seferis and his seminal book on Byron and the Greek Revolutionary War, which, along with his latest book, Greece: Gonda Van Steen, December 2019 Emeritus Koraes Professor Roderick Beaton receiving his special award medal from Prokopis Students on the October 2019 Rumble Fund trip Pavlopoulos, President of the Hellenic Republic INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD DONATIONS IN KIND The Board held its annual meeting on 7 February 2019, the day of the Christopher, Lord Terrington (Guy’s 1970), son and literary executor of C.M. Runciman Lecture. Its external members are Professor Dame Averil Cameron Woodhouse, for many years a Visiting Professor at King’s, generously donated (Oxford), Dr Dionysios Kapsalis (Director, Cultural Foundation of the National a collection of books written by his father, including the Greek translations of Bank, Athens), Professor Paschalis M. Kitromilides (Emeritus Professor of the his most important works. We thank him wholeheartedly. University of Athens), Dr Tassos Leventis FKC (Director of the A.G. Leventis Foundation), Professor Sir Michael Llewellyn-Smith (former HM Ambassador to Greece and a CHS Visiting Professor), and Professor Richard P. Martin (Stanford University). NEW ANNUAL STUDENTSHIPS & PRIZES LECTURE SERIES • The Niki Marangou Translation Prize, also • As in previous years, the Schilizzi Foundation sponsored by Mr Candounas and awarded this once again awarded scholarships to students On 23 May 2019, the inaugural Niki Marangou year to King’s MA student Petros Nicolaou, of Greek nationality to pursue studies in any Annual Memorial Lecture took place at King’s again commemorates Niki Marangou, fi eld at King’s. On behalf ofMr Stephen Schilizzi College London, sponsored by Mr Constantis with a focus on her written work. From FKC, the most recent awards were presented to Candounas. Professor Vayos Liapis (Open 2019 onwards, the prize will be awarded the Schilizzi Scholarship Winners 2019-20: University of Cyprus) gave a fascinating and annually for a literary translation from Charilaos Otimos (International Relations BA), beautifully illustrated lecture on the topic of Modern Greek into English of one poem and Layana Tahboub (Nutrition and Dietetics BSc), Blowing up the Parthenon: Greek Antiquity one prose extract from Marangou’s many and Eleni Xanthopoulou (Psychology BSc). as a Burden and as a Rival on the Modern publications. Beginning in January 2020 Greek Stage. With humour and acumen, (with a submission deadline of 15 January), • The penultimate fully funded visit Professor Liapis challenged our thinking the competition will be open to all BA, MA to Greece for students of the Classics about the classical legacy and its impact on and PhD students currently enrolled in any Department, made possible by the generosity the Modern Greek theatre stage, framing faculty of a London-based university. The of the Jamie Rumble Memorial Fund, took his argument by the notions of colonization next award of £500 will be announced in the place in December 2018. Professor Michael and self-colonization (see also tinyurl.com/ evening of 7 February 2020, on the occasion Squire, who led the visit, writes: ‘Twenty- nmarangou2019). of the second Niki Marangou Lecture. four BA and MA students from the King’s An enthusiastic audience of approximately Please save the date and help us spread the Department of Classics visited around 90 attendees engaged the speaker with news about this student prize. For more twenty museums and sites in Athens, Attica questions over a wine reception afterwards. information, see www.kcl.ac.uk/chs and Delphi. The December 2018 trip formed Hosted by CHS, Professor Liapis’s part of a module on the Classical Art of the presentation was placed under the auspices • The 2019 annual Katie Lentakis Memorial Body: Greek Sculpture and its Legacy, taught of the High Commission of Cyprus. His Fund Award, off ered by the Anglo-Hellenic by Professor Michael Squire. Participants Excellency Mr Euripides Evriviades introduced League to a fi nal-year undergraduate were particularly excited to receive a special the event and paid tribute to the gifted and studying in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities guided tour inside the Parthenon, which infl uential Niki Marangou, to whose memory at King’s College London, in memory of is usually closed to the public (thanks to the lecture series has been dedicated. She the late Mrs Katie Lentakis, was presented on assistance from the Greek Archaeological was an inspirational Cypriot poet, novelist, 17 June 2019 by the League’s Chair, Dr John Service); they also benefi ted from the painter and bookshop-owner, who died Kittmer. The winner of the 2019 award, in opportunity to meet students from the tragically in 2013. As Professor Liapis the amount of £500, was Gina Prat Lilly, for an University of Athens, following a special testifi ed, she drew circles of young student essay entitled Between Dictatorship and Exile: reception at the British School at Athens. As readers to her bookshop at a time when Two Antigones of Postwar Spain. Salvador always, the Department of Classics is very exposure to international literature and Espriu’s Antígona and María Zambrano’s La grateful to our various partners in Greece, learning was hard to come by. tumba de Antígona, supervised by Dr Rosa not least to Professor Dimitris Plantzos, Andujar Mark for his wonderful lecture on The second Niki Marangou Annual Memorial . Specially commended were Mind the Gap: Coomber . Lecture will be held in Athens on 7 February , for an essay entitled The Importance Revisiting Greece’s National ‘Sites of Trauma’ 2020 (at 19:00), and the featured speaker of Christianity to the Imperial Ideology of the Students themselves provide the best will be Dr John Kittmer, Chair of the Empire of Trebizond (12-1), supervised testimony of what these trips mean to them. Anglo-Hellenic League and former HM by Dr Vassiliki Manolopoulou, and Medea Manaz, Students’ testimonies (and videos) can be Ambassador to Greece. In June, Kittmer for an essay entitled Is Acting Madness? A found at: www.kcl.ac.uk/classics/about/rumble- was awarded a PhD for his thesis Ritsos Metatheatrical Reading of Euripides’ Bacchae, fund-trip-201819 supervised by Koraes Professor Gonda Van Steen. as Reader: The Poetics of Eclecticism in the In late October 2019, the Rumble Fund At a well-attended ceremony in the Council Mature Work of Yannis Ritsos. This was a trip returned to Athens and included a Room of King’s College London, the part-time project undertaken across several visit to the island of Rhodes as well. On the League’s Chair congratulated the winner and years and supervised by Professor David Ricks, itinerary were: visits to the Acropolis and shortlisted students on the very high standard with support from Professor Roderick Beaton. the Acropolis Museum, a guided visit of of their submissions. The award ceremony Kittmer is now working on a number of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural was followed by an illustrated and spirited follow-up publication projects. The title of Center, a walking tour of the Ilissus river presentation given by Dr Anastasia Bakogianni, Kittmer’s Marangou lecture (in Greek) is: bank and discussions about urban planning, Lecturer in Classical Studies at Massey Anglo-Hellenism: Adventures in Cultural a walking tour of the old town of Rhodes University, New Zealand.