2026

Friday, October 23, 2026

Abstract

On 10 March, 241 BCE, the final naval battle of the First Punic War was fought off western Sicily, where a large Roman fleet engaged an equally large Carthaginian fleet near the Aegates Islands.  In his account of the battle, Polybius (Book 1.60-61) describes the victory as decisive for the Romans, with the Carthaginians forced to sue for peace shortly thereafter.  Almost 2300 years later, the battle site has been located off Levanzo Island (in the modern Egadi Islands group), and its landscape has been carefully surveyed by RPM Nautical Foundation and Sicily’s Soprintendenza del Mare.  Between 2005 and 2024, a wide scatter of artifacts, including over two dozen ship rams, have been recorded and raised from the sea floor, relics from the first maritime battlefield of ancient times which has ever been explored.

This lecture will discuss briefly the field project and its background, followed by an overview of the major finds, including some of the earliest Latin inscriptions and Roman iconographic representations yet discovered.  Among the more important artifacts brought to the surface are the military equipment finds: helmets, swords, and sling bullets.  This corpus of material represents one of the earliest concentrations of contextually-secure Roman military artifacts ever to be recovered.  Significantly, this rare assemblage includes a series of helmets of the early Montefortino type, what are arguably the most successful piece of equipment ever developed, in use for nearly 500 years.  These mid-3^rd century BCE military specimens are not only helping us to understand the use and production of Roman equipment, but are also permitting us to reexamine the development of the Roman military and its organization during the Middle Republic, arguably one of its most important, formative periods.

Friday, October 2, 2026

Abstract

The tenth-century nun Hrotsvit of Gandersheim is well-known to historians of drama and scholars of medieval literature, but she is seldom read by classicists. This is a shame, since in addition to being one of the most accomplished and important Latin writers of the Middle Ages, she is also an extremely thoughtful and significant interpreter of classical poetry. Modelling her works in turn on Ovid (legendary tales), Terence (dramas), and Virgil (short epics), she takes classical genres and combines them with Christian content, prefacing each work with prefaces in which she speaks openly about her method, her inspiration, and the challenges she faced while writing. In this paper, I introduce Hrotsvit's fascinating poetry, and situate her in the context of female intellectual culture in the Ottonian age, which reveals much greater engagement with the classical past on the part of women readers and writers than might be assumed.

Friday, September 18, 2026

Abstract

In this presentation, I will examine Mary Shelley’s conceptualization and fictionalization of Greece, analyzing how her engagement with classical Greece and her sustained interest in the Greek War of Independence contributed to a distinctive form of philhellenic discourse. This discourse influenced the themes and motifs of her works, ranging from her most explicitly philhellenic novel, The Last Man (1826), to her last long work of fiction, Falkner (1837). Drawing upon archival materials, I argue that Mary Shelley’s nuanced reinterpretations of both ancient and modern Greece illuminate significant aspects of her literary, political, and gender sensibilities while also revealing an alternative tradition of Hellenism and Philhellenism that merits further exploration. 

Friday, April 17, 2026

Abstract

This talk examines how Byzantium is represented in Greek literature for children and adolescents from 1955 to the present, focusing on how the Byzantine past is interpreted and reshaped for young readers. It draws on two distinct research projects conducted over eight years, each analyzing different categories of children’s books about the Byzantine era. The first study looked at thirty-five historical novels, exploring how representations of Byzantium have evolved and how authors connect Byzantine history to Greek identity and multicultural awareness. The second focused on thirty-five nonfiction picture books about Byzantium, a relatively understudied genre that blends factual information with narrative elements. It investigated how these books present reliable, accessible historical knowledge while remaining engaging for young readers. This study also explored categorization, narrative conventions, and the integration of text and images. Finally, it evaluates how these works connect past and present, encourage curiosity, and balance educational and aesthetic goals while avoiding stereotypes and addressing both children and adult readers. Dr. Angelaki's talk brings the findings of the aforementioned studies together to showcase the evolving place of Byzantium in the thought world of young Greeks.

Friday, April 10, 2026

Abstract

This paper discusses the relation between Peter Brown’s recent autobiography and our approaches to the period known as Late Antiquity. Whereas Brown is generally positive about the many changes that overtook the Roman empire and society generally at this time, others have been more critical. It is suggested that some aspects of his biography may help to explain his more positive approach, which may not fully do justice to this tumultuous period.

Friday, March 27, 2026

Abstract

A rare text of the Gospel lections written entirely in gold ink had several elite owners from the patriarchate and imperial palace in Constantinople, to the cathedral of the Empire of Trebizond, an emigre Greek bishop in Italy, Pope Julius II in Rome, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, before being given to the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence.  Each valued the object for different purposes, which allows its biography to be described in detail. Thus, the manuscript is a case study of its prestige and importance in the Greek East and the Latin West.

Friday, March 20, 2026

Abstract

Drawing from the Benaki Museum’s collection of African art, the participatory exhibition Africa Amongst Us* unfolded at the intersection of visibility and absence, Greekness and Blackness, and the complexities of belonging and representation. The project engaged not only with historical narratives of Africa, but also with the political urgency of the present, foregrounding Afrodiasporic presence in contemporary Athenian society.

This talk reflects on this long-term project as an ongoing curatorial and ethical process, shaped by collaboration, co-design, and forms of co-authorship developed through working with communities. It approaches identity as something continually negotiated within the museum space—between curators, participants, objects, and audiences—while examining how African cultures are mediated within a Greek institutional framework and how museums operate as civic spaces where dialogue, knowledge, and social presence are continually reconfigured.

Friday, March 13, 2026

Speaker Biography

Dr. Kristen Collins is a curator of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Her lecture explores the transformation of the secular spaces of the museum through the 2006 exhibition Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai.  Conceived and presented as a collection of historically significant Byzantine religious works, the exhibition surprised staff and visitors alike with the depth of feeling that the icons, their display, and interpretation engendered among those who connected to the show through online media and print, as well as in-person visits and programs, transforming the museum for a short time into a site for pilgrimage, prayer, and wonder.  

Friday, February 13, 2026

Abstract

Just a few years after the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, Athenians attacked and seized Eion. A small Greek city-state in the Northern Aegean, its connections to Persia were peripheral, and its conquest has sparked scholarly debate as a result. This talk offers one perspective on Eion's conquest, contextualizing it in the Mediterranean timber trade by elucidating its perceived role in Athens' political economy. Seizing and colonizing Eion gave Athenians access to timber resources which allowed them to cheaply satisfy critical military and domestic needs, paving the way for Athens' rise as an imperial power. I will first discuss the importance of timber suitable for building and maintaining Athens' state-of-the-art navy, a topic long noted by scholars. I will then contribute to scholarship by discussing timber's role in construction more broadly as well as timber's role as a source of energy at Athens. Finally, I will touch on the important role that specialized labor played in Eion's capture. By connecting these aspects together, I hope to better contextualize Eion's seizure in what I am calling the "Arboreal Economy.

Friday, January 16, 2026

Abstract

This talk traces the history of Apokries (carnival) festivities in Istanbul in the early 20^th century until the 1940s, when they disappeared. It aims to explore questions of urban space, class, gender, and ethnic identities against the background of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish nation-building efforts. Centered in Tatavla, a small lower-class Greek-Orthodox neighborhood in Istanbul, Apokries and Clean Monday fair were moments of collective entertainment and consumption. During the Ottoman period, the festivities had a multi-ethnic, semi-underground character, which was not necessarily embraced by all, but largely tolerated. Drawing on Greek and Ottoman-Turkish sources, this talk first aims to draw the social and cultural dynamics at play in festivities and how they were viewed by the Greek-Orthodox elite, Ottoman authorities, and Muslims at the end of the Ottoman Empire. The talk then turns to Turkish newspapers of the 1920s and 19230s, which documented the Apokries’ growing scale and participation, while simultaneously attacking it as Greek, Christian and foreign. By tracing these shifting representations, the paper shows how the marginalization and eventual disappearance of Apokries formed part of a broader project of Turkish nation-building, modernity, secularism, and remaking of Istanbul’s urban public space.