2023

Whose Egypt? Centring Egyptian Multivocality in the Making of Egypt’s Heritage

Heba Abd El Gawad, Research Fellow, University College of London

Abstract

There is an ancient Egyptian artefact sitting in nearly every major city around the world. How did they get there? What impact does such wide dispersal have on global perceptions of ancient and modern Egypt and the field of museology? What does this mean to Egyptians today? And how within the current decolonising museums movement do we address this legacy? In 2018, we initiated the Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage project in partnership with a variety of Egyptian artists and community groups to confront colonial practices and legacies of ancient Egyptian collections using collections and archive of 6 UK institutions as raw material for Egyptian groups to speak back to and develop in ways of benefit to them. In this paper, by showcasing the comic strips, superheroes, and graphic novel produced by the project and released on the Egyptian social media verse we will trace back the project journey, the responses it gauged, and the lessons learnt.

Μουκαδδερατημηζά χακίμ ολαλήμ': The Turcophone Refugees in Greece After the Asia Minor Catastrophe & the 1923 Greco-Turkish Population Exchange

Aytek Soner Alpan, Hellenisms Past and Present, Local and Global, Postdoctoral Fellow, Simon Fraser University

Abstract

On January 30, 1923, the Convention regarding the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations was signed, marking history’s first-ever compulsory population exchange. The Turkish-speaking Orthodox communities of Asia Minor were too subject to the population exchange and transferred to Greece. Upon arriving in Greece, the refugees faced a society torn by the war and imbued by nationalism. In this milieu, the Turcophone refugees encountered a double challenge. Being deprived of access to the existing sociopolitical networks, they utilized different means to participate in political life and banish the aphonia imposed upon them. They used publications as a means to address this need. This talk depicts the atmosphere in which the Turcophone refugees found themselves and their political reaction to this atmosphere while wandering through the pages of a refugee newspaper published in Turkish with Greek characters, namely Προσφυγική Φωνή/Μουχατζήρ Σεδασί [Muhacir Sedası = Refugee Voice].

From Homer to Draco: The Prehistory of Athenian Homocide Law

David Phillips, Professor, UCLA

Abstract

In this presentation, Professor Phillips will offer a (necessarily hypothetical) reconstruction of the development of Athenian homicide law from the strict liability for homicide in Homeric and other early epic to the homicide law of Draco, which dispenses with strict liability and punishes intentional and unintentional homicide differently.

Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!: A Conversation with Liv Albert, Podcast Creator

Liv Albert, Sabrina Higgins, SFU, & Dimitris Krallis, SFU

Abstract

In this installment of the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies Seminar Series, we are shifting gears from a formal talk given by our invited speaker to an informal, interview-style chat with Liv Albert, the host of the renowned Greek mythology podcast Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! 

Moderated by Dr. Sabrina Higgins and Dr. Dimitris Krallis, we talk with Liv about her entry into podcasting, the centring of feminist and queer approaches to myths in her work, and the ways in which these ancient stories can shed light on the lives of real people in the ancient world.

On Sublimation of Displacement: The Story of Three Journeys

Tassos Boulmetis, Film Director

Abstract

This talk will be an encounter on the trauma caused by the expulsions of the Greek population that took place in 1964 in Turkey, to a 7 year old boy, the denial of identity, the tough adaptation period to a new society, and finally, after a self revealing journey, how this trauma was sublimated to a creative work of art. 

It will be a bitter sweet and sometimes funny presentation of how POLITIKI kouzina was created and the various stories including political turbulence and historical facts between the two countries.

Plato and the Historical Imagination

Kathryn Morgan, the Joan Palevsky Professor of Classics at the University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

This lecture proposes a new vision of Plato as the creator of the historical imagination. In several dialogues, we see the philosopher highlighting issues of emotional and intellectual engagement with historical narrative. Plato models for the first time a vision of projection into the past, engaging also with the allure of counterfactual history and historical wishful thinking. How are we to understand this focus? I suggest that his goal is to rework sentimental attitudes to historical tradition and create a vision of ethically-informed historical research, a vision that emphasizes rational reconstruction of the past and outlines the positive philosophical purposes in which it might be deployed.

The Role of Online Tools in 'Populating' Ottoman Landscapes: Architecture in Southern Greece and Middle Eastern Crafts

Evanthia Baboula & Marcus Milwright, professors of Art History & Visual Studies, University of Victoria

Abstract

This joint talk provides reflections on the development of selected online projects dealing with the material and visual cultures of the Ottoman period in Greece and the Middle East. One of these projects has grown out of ongoing research on Ottoman sites in the Peloponnese and southern mainland Greece, while the others stem from an engagement with traditional craft practices in the regions of Syria and Iraq. Clearly, online formats – in these examples incorporating visual databases, maps, and podcasts – have considerable potential as publicly accessible assemblages of data, which can be continually updated and revised. Here we pose questions about the user experience and evaluation of diverse source materials (textual, archaeological, material and visual) in relation to understanding the complexities of life in the Ottoman empire.

"Unmixing" People? The Fate of Jews Amidst the Exchange of Populations Between Greece and Turkey

Devin Naar,  Issac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies, University of Washington

Abstract

A century ago, Greece and Turkey executed massive population transfers that resulted in the expulsion of most Orthodox Christians from Turkey and most Muslims from Greece. Formalized by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the population expulsions dramatically transformed the demographics on both sides of the Aegean Sea. Exempted from the transfers, Jews in the region remained in situ as two million people were uprooted around them. How did the population exchange impact the fate of the largest Jewish community in the region, in Salonica (Thessaloniki), and factor into the ongoing contestation over national identity? Rather than "unmix" the populations, to what extent did the exchange remix them and produce new, volatile tensions, and even unexpected opportunities, along the way?