Edward and Emily McWhinney Professorship in International Relations

How was the modern Greek state built? To what ideas, concepts and practices did the authorities of the new state turn to produce and legitimize its legal and political system? What intellectual and institutional disputes and different reform projects did this process entail? This lecture addresses these questions by looking at nineteenth-century Greek liberalism and the ways in which it engaged in reforms in the Greek state after independence from the Ottomans (ca. 1830-1880). By focusing on the thought and actions of a group of legal scholars whose influence and public role went far beyond the academy, the lecture challenges some of the assumptions of Western-centric histories of nineteenth-century liberalism.

Michalis Sotiropoulos, FRHistS, is a historian of modern Europe specializing in the intellectual history of the Greek world in the long nineteenth century. He is currently the 1821 Fellow in Modern Greek Studies at the British School at Athens, while in October 2024, he will join the University of Edinburg as a Lecturer in Modern Greek Studies. Michalis has published on a number of topics, while his monograph Liberalism after the Revolution: The Intellectual Foundations of the Greek State, ca. 1830-1880 was recently published by Cambridge University Press.

In 2023 the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies welcomed Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou, ""Russia’s Religious Influence-Building in Greece: Geopolitical Disruption and Orthodox Transnational Competition". Elizabeth H. Prodromou is Visiting Scholar in the International Studies Program at Boston College and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Her research interests and policy work focus on the intersections of geopolitics, religion, and human rights, with particular focus on the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Prodromou served a diplomatic appointment on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2004-2012), and she was also a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Religion & Foreign Policy Working Group (2011-2015). The author of two edited volumes and many book chapters, her most recent publication deals with Russian influence-building through religious soft power, in The Kremlin Playbook 3: Keeping the Faith. She has published widely in peer-review journals such as Journal of World Christianity, Journal of Democracy, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Orbis, Survival, European Journal of Political Research. Prodromou is a frequent commentator and contributor in US and international media, and she has offered expert testimony and briefings to policymaking bodies such as the US Helsinki Commission, the European Parliament, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. She has held visiting research appointments at the Center for American Progress, the Hedayah International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism, the Hudson Institute, among others. She has taught at Tufts University, Boston University, and Princeton University, and she was a consultant member of the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (2016).

In 2022 the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies welcomed Dr. Stathis Kalyvas, for his talk, "How Democracies Survive: Greece, 2012-2022". Stathis N. Kalyvas is Gladstone Professor of Government and fellow of All Souls College at Oxford. Until 2018 he was Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he founded and directed the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence and co-directed the Hellenic Studies Program. In 2019 he founded and directs the T. E. Lawrence Program on Conflict and Violence at All Souls College. He is the author of The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know, the co-editor of Order, Conflict, and Violence and the Oxford Handbook on Terrorism, and the author of over fifty scholarly articles in five languages, as well as several books and edited volumes in Greek. His current research focuses on global trends in political violence and conflict. He has an additional interest in the history and politics of Greece, where he is a regular columnist for Kathimerini.

In 2021 the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies virtually welcomed Dr. Roman Gerodimos for the Fifth Annual Edward and Emily McWhinney Memorial Lecture, entitled "Is There a Future for 'The West'? European Security, the Transatlantic Alliance, and the Role of Values in the New World Disorder." Dr. Roman Gerodimos is an associate professor of Global Current Affairs at Bournemouth University, and a faculty member at the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change. His research focuses on the challenges facing engagement, democracy, and global security due to globalization, digitization, and extremism. Roman is also the founder and convenor (2004-2017) of the Greek Politics Specialist Group - the largest international network of social science scholars on Greece. He is the winner of the Arthur McDougall Fund Prize, awarded by the Political Studies Association, for his research on digital youth civic engagement. He has written, directed and produced four award-winning short and documentary films, including his latest film Deterrence.

In 2020 the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies virtually hosted Dr. Harris Mylonas for the Fourth Annual Edward and Emily McWhinney Memorial Lecture, entitled "Charismatic Leadership and its Discontents: The Case of Greece." Dr. Mylonas is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He is also the editor-in-chief of Nationalities Papers published by Cambridge University Press for the Association for the Study of Nationalities. His documentary film, "Searching for Andreas: Political Leadership in Times of Crisis," which also deals with the deep causes of the recent financial and political crisis in Greece, premiered at the 2018 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and won two awards at the 2019 International Documentary Festival of Ierapetra.

In 2019 the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies welcomed Dr. Dimitris Papadimitriou to the podium for the Third Annual Edward and Emily McWhinney Memorial Lecture, entitled "Bailout Legacies: The Imprint of the Greek Economic Crisis on the European Union." Dr. Papadimitriou is Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester and Director of the Manchester Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence. He is also a leading scholar of Greek politics and public policy and has written extensively on the European Union’s political economy and external relations. His latest book, Prime Ministers in Greece: The Paradox of Power (with Kevin Featherstone) was published by Oxford University Press in 2015.

In 2018 the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies welcomed Professor Loukas Tsoukalis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy and leading expert on European integration for the second annual Edward and Emily McWhinney Memorial Lecture, entitled: “Brexit and the European Union: Is There Life After the Divorce?” Professor Tsoukalis is the author of many books and articles on European integration and international political economy. He has advised the former President of the European Commission and the former President of the European Council. He is the president of Greece’s leading think tank (ELIAMEP) and he now teaches in Paris and Bruges. His latest book In Defence of Europe: Can the European Project Be Saved? was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. He has received the Légion d’honneur of the French Republic for his contribution to European integration, as well as many academic distinctions and awards.

In 2017 the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies welcomed Dr. Michael Danti, the Academic Director of the American Schools of Oriental Research Cultural Heritage Initiatives, for the First Annual Edward and Emily McWhinney Memorial Lecture. Dr. Danti's lecture is entitled "A Momentary Erasure of Millennia: The Cultural Heritage Crises in Syria and Iraq"