Envisioning the Greek Landscape

When:

October 19, 2023 – October 21, 2023

Where:

Athens, Greece
Kostis Palamas building (University of Athens) and Cotsen Hall (Gennadius Library)

Organized by:

Professor Katerina Lagos, California State University, Sacramento
and Professor James Horncastle, Simon Fraser University

The Envisioning the Greek Landscape conference is breaking new ground by exploring the Greek environment through an interdisciplinary and diachronic lens. Academics from different scholarly disciplines and historical periods will address the themes outlined above, examining how the peoples inhabiting Greece, broadly conceived, have responded to these issues. Additionally, the conference will conclude with a policy roundtable so that both academics and policymakers can discuss some of the important issues raised in the scholarly panels. In this manner, the scholars will be extending their influence beyond academic circles. The conference organizers strongly believe that understanding past environmental challenges and experiences can influence or shape contemporary policymaking. Often, earlier historical solutions to environmental challenges can inspire for more ecologically friendly solutions in the present.
 
The panels will examine topics such as disease, drought, forest fires, earthquakes, and balancing human existence to the surrounding environment. The panels will begin with the ancient period, and then progress to Byzantium, the Ottoman era, the modern Greek state, and then conclude with recent developments. Additionally, institutions such the Orthodox Church, political and economic elites, both domestic and foreign, will be analyzed vis-à-vis their perceived role toward the environment.
 
Finally, one of the fundamental goals of the conference is to stimulate a new exchange of ideas regarding the Greek environment. With that in mind, the organizers of the conference intend to publish a selection of the presentation papers as an edited volume. This will disseminate the ideas of the conference to a wider audience – both popular and academic – and help foster greater interest in the environment: past, present, and future.

This event is sponsored by Gefyra, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the California State University Sacramento, and is made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

Gefyra (Bridge) is a collaborative program established by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University with support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).