Please join us for our April Book Club gathering, which will take place at a private residence (details TBD…stay tuned for updates).
The book we will feature is “Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter” by Thomas Cahill. Below is a brief synopsis:
In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, his fourth volume to explore “the hinges of history,” Thomas Cahill escorts the reader on another entertaining — and historically unassailable — journey through the landmarks of art and bloodshed that defined Greek culture nearly three millennia ago.
In the city-states of Athens and Sparta and throughout the Greek islands, honors could be won in making love and war, and lives were rife with contradictions. By developing the alphabet, the Greeks empowered the reader, demystified experience, and opened the way for civil discussion and experimentation — yet they kept slaves. The glorious verses of the Iliad recount a conflict in which rage and outrage spur men to action and suggest that their “bellicose society of gleaming metals and rattling weapons” is not so very distant from more recent campaigns of “shock and awe.” And, centuries before Zorba, Greece was a land where music, dance, and freely flowing wine were essential to the high life. Granting equal time to the sacred and the profane, Cahill rivets our attention to the legacies of an ancient and enduring worldview.
Please join us for the annual Πρωτομαγιά Picnic hosted by Lykion ton Ellinidon and the Hellenic Women’s Cultural Association on Sunday, May 3rd, 2015. Tickets are available PRE-SALE only, so make sure to purchase your tickets in advance. The afternoon will feature traditional activities such as wreath-making and the flying of kites, as well as music and dancing.
The afternoon will also feature a traditional Greek menu of souvlaki, spanako-tiropites, oven-roasted potatoes, tzatziki, pita bread, and soft drinks/water. Beer will also be available for purchase. Our kid-friendly menu will include hot dogs, chips and a drink.
Friends of GSU’s Center for Hellenic Studies,
The deepening crisis regarding conflicting European attitudes and residential policies regarding the expanding refugee crisis impacts the poorer Mediterranean EU nations inordinately. While North African refugees have entered Europe primarily through Spain and Italy (and mostly Italy), the recent flood of Syrian refugees have entered Europe in overwhelming numbers through the Dodecanesian Greek islands (Lesbos, Kos, Chios and Samos).
Please join us for a panel discussion of this crisis sponsored by the Center for Hellenic Studies’s Global Studies Initiative partner, the Middle East Studies Center, on Tuesday, September 29, from 3:00pm to 4:30pm in the Troy Moore Library.
Please note this upcoming lecture at Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum…Hamilakis colloquium flyer
The Center for Hellenic Studies is very pleased that Georgia State University has been selected to host the 24th symposium of the Modern Greek Studies Association. The biennial conference, to be held on campus October 15-18, 2015, is the meeting of the largest professional organization for Hellenic Studies in the world. Some two hundred international scholars are expected to attend the conference, which typically features more than eighty presentations, a keynote address, music concerts, film screenings, and more. Some of the program highlights will be announced well in advance on the program’s website, which can be accessed via www.mgsa.org.