News release
Byzantine Relics and Greek Lives: SNF Centre releases inaugural podcast episode ft. Dimitris Krallis and Anthony Kaldellis
For the first time in its history, the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies has produced a podcast episode.
On Tuesday July 21, 2020, Dr. Dimitris Krallis from the Department of Humanities and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies linked up with professor Anthony Kaldellis of The Ohio State University’s Department of Classics for a free-wheeling, informal conversation on Byzantium and Modern Greece. Interested in the ways in which the history, culture, and traditions that stem (or are perceived to stem) from Byzantium make it into modern Greek public discourse and spaces, the two colleagues navigated some two hundred years of Greek engagement with the history and culture of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Byzantine Relics and Greek Lives episode is a conversation that touches upon a wide variety of subjects, anything from politics, nationalism, the Church, literature, ideology and music, soccer, education and even military service. Dimitris and Anthony enjoyed thinking about the history of Modern Greece and the interesting ways in which Byzantium finds a place in it. At times personal, but also humorous and to be sure scholarly, this discussion serves as an interesting introduction to a subject that is not as extensively covered in scholarship as one would expect given Byzantium’s place in the Greek imaginary.
Dimitris Krallis was born and raised in Athens. At the University of Athens he studied political theory before he turned to the social and political history of Byzantium at Oxford. After an interruption of four years dedicated to military service and to teaching at the American College of Greece he moved to the University of Michigan for his doctorate. Upon graduation he joined the faculty at Simon Fraser University where he works at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies and the Department of Humanities maintaining a strong interest in Byzantine social, political, and intellectual history, historiography but also in questions of Byzantium's modern reception.
Anthony Kaldellis grew up in Athens before he moved to the United Stated where he completed his undergraduate degree and Ph.D at the University of Michigan. He is the preeminent historian of Byzantium for his generation and has published multiple books and articles on issues that range from dissidence, historiography and classicism to Byzantine ethnicity, identity, and politics. He is also an avid translator of Byzantine texts, who has made accessible multiple primary sources from the Byzantine world to both scholars and lay readers. What is more he maintains a robust public engagement program with his popular Byzantium and Friends podcast. He has been a member of The Ohio State University's Classics Department since the early 2000s.
For more information about the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies and its programs, please visit our Media page or subscribe to our email list so you never miss an update!