Archive of Past Events

Spring 2012 Events

CSAMES Brown Bag Lecture Series: "The Impact of the Media on Cyprus and Greece"

February 21
Speaker: Alexis Georgiadis (Journalism Student)
Lucy Ellis lounge, 1080 Foreign Languages Building, 12PM

1st Champaign Greek Film Festival with the collaboration of the FilmHellenes

March 2 & 3, 2012
Art Theater, Champaign
Starting on Friday evening, March 2nd, we will be showing 7 films (1 documentary and 6 feature films), all recent Greek productions several of which have won prizes at international venues. The films will be introduced by our visiting lecturer, Dr. Vassiliki Tsitsopoulou. The program will include the films: "The Guide" (2011), "Without Borders" (2011), "Attenberg" (2010), "Gold Dust" (2009), "Plato's Academy" (2009), "The Guardian's Son" (2006), and the documentary "The Silent School: The History of the Theological School of Halki" (2010).

The film festival is generously supported by the European Union Center , the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center , and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies , and by Merry Ann's Diner and Pepsi-Cola CU Bottling Company.

1st Champaign Greek Film Festival


The Contemporary Piano IV: Impressions from Greece

During two performances, in Urbana (March 13) and in Chicago (March 15), award-winning pianist Konstantinos Papadakis (New England Conservatory) will perform a program works by Greek composers and new works inspired by Greek themes. The program will include works by Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949), Jay Reise (b. 1950), Minas Borboudakis (b. 1974), Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann (b. 1973), Panagiotis Theodossiou (b.1964), and Manos Hadjidakis (1925-1994).

March 13, 2012
Smith Memorial Room, Smith Memorial Hall 7:30PM

March 15, 2012
National Hellenic Museum, 333 South Halsted Street, Chicago, IL 60661

The "Contemporary Piano IV: Impressions from Greece" has been awarded an Innovative Initiatives Grant by the Modern Greek Studies Association.

Nationalism qua Modernization: The Greek War of Independence

April 23, 2012
Guest speaker: Pantelis Lekkas (Onassis Foundation Senior Visiting Scholar & Associate Professor of Political Science, Panteion University)
Lucy Ellis lounge, 1080 Foreign Languages Building, 4PM

This is an attempt to place the Greek War of Independence in the wider context of the clash between Tradition and Modernity in the European periphery. It focuses on the ideology and the movement of nationalism � a phenomenon springing up in modernity and bringing forward the concept of the nation as the proper unit of state organization. Being the undisputed offspring of nationalism (which is to be understood as both the product and the vehicle of modernization), the Greek War of Independence is discussed not solely in its political dimensions but also in terms of its contribution to a much broader societal change. It is in this sense that the Greek struggle for independence may be interpreted as the specifically �Greek exit� from tradition � as an undoubtedly unique event of momentous importance per se, yet, on the other hand, as one more instance in a prolonged and very intricate process of societal transformations.

Academic Year 2008-2009

The Journey: The Greek American Dream

September 24, 2008
Spurlock Museum
Guest speakers: Maria Iliou (documentary director), Alexander Kitroeff (historian)
Associated event: Interview with Alexander Kitroeff, Associate Professor in History at Haverford College by Tom Rogers of WILL AM 580

EUC film night: Eduart (Greece/Germany, 2007)

February 18, 2009
English Building 160

Greek American Accents

April 22, 2009
Levis Faculty Center
Guest speaker: Vassilios Lambropoulos (C.P. Cavafy Professor of Classical Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan)

Greece in the 21st century: Trends & Challenges

April 24, 2009
Illini Center Chicago
Roundtable discussion with:
Vassilios Lambropoulos (University of Michigan)
Mary Kalantzis (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Nanno Marinatos (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Frank Hess (Indiana University)
Robert Pahre (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Coordinator: Marina Terkourafi (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Academic Year 2009-2010

Teaching Greek as a Second Language

October 27-28, 2009
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speakers:
Brian Joseph (Ohio State University)
Mark Janse (University of Ghent, Belgium)
Evangelia Adamou (Paris CNRS/LACITO)
Niovi Antonopoulou (University of Thessaloniki)
Amalia Arvaniti (UCSD)
Stavroula Tsiplakou (University of Cyprus)
Panayotis Pappas (SFU)

9th International Conference on Greek Linguistics

October 29-31, 2009
International House, University of Chicago
Co-sponsored by Modern Greek Studies

EUC film night: "The last Homecoming" (Cyprus, 2008)

January 28, 2010
Foreign Languages Building
Followed by discussion with Mahir Saul (UIUC, Anthropology) and Telemachos Mouschovias (UIUC, Astrophysics). Event related to the workshop Violence Trauma and Displacement in Eurasia and the Middle East, organized by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chicago.

CSAMES Brown Bag Series: "Love Causation as Emission: A Cross-Cultural Conceptual Model in Medieval Greek Folksongs and 20th Century Greek Poetry"

February 23, 2010
Foreign Languages Building
Guest speaker: Cristobal Pagan Canovas (PhD Murcia, Marie Curie Fellow, UCSD)

Informational meeting on EU research funding

February 23 2010
International Studies Building
Guest speaker: Cristobal Pagan Canovas (PhD Murcia, Marie Curie Fellow, UCSD)

Modern Greek Symposium: Foreigners in Greece, Then and Now

March 11-12, 2010
Levis Faculty Center

How to forget in Greek: Lexicogrammatical patterns of verbs in an inflected language

March 30, 2010
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speaker: Dionysis Goutsos (Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Athens & Onassis Scholar)

Cultural memory in Diaspora

April 8, 2010
I Hotel and Conference Center
 Guest speaker: C. Nadia Seremetakis (Professor of Anthropology, University of the Peloponnese) [Press Release]

Soundscapes Conference

April 8-9, 2010
Levis Faculty Center
Co-sponsored by Modern Greek Studies

European Film Night: "First Time Godfather" (Proti Fora Nonos)

April 15, 2010
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building

Cultural Heritage Practices and Debates in the European Union

April 20, 2010
English Building
Guest speaker: Vasiliki Kynourgiopoulou, Center for Heritage and Tourism Studies in the Mediterranean, Rome, Italy
Co-sponsored by Modern Greek Studies

Greek Identities and Historical Narratives: Petrakis to Eugenides

April 26, 2010
Foreign Language Building
 Guest speaker: Michael Davros (Department of English, Northeastern Illinois University)

Houston and Papadimitriou Greek Culture Awards 2010

May 1, 2010
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speaker: Neni Panourgia (Professor of Anthropology, Columbia U)

The Greek Financial Crisis and the European Union

June 24, 2010
Fundraiser in Chicago (National Hellenic Museum)
 Guest speaker: Kostas Kourtikakis (Political Science and Modern Greek Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Co-sponsored by Modern Greek Studies, the Hellenic Professional Society of Illinois, and the National Hellenic Museum

Academic Year 2010-2011

CSAMES Brown Bag Series: "Changing Communities, Shifting Indexicalities in Modern Greek"

October 5, 2010
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speaker: Marina Terkourafi (Dept. of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Movie night: "With Heart and Soul" (PSYCHE VATHEA)

October 20, 2010
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
A historical movie on the Greek civil war
Director: Pantelis Voulgaris, Starring: Victoria Haralabidou, Hristos Karteris, Giorgos Angelkos, Vangelis Mourikis

A Panel on the State of the Hellenic Economy

October 29, 2010
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speakers: Chryssi Giannitsarou (University of Cambridge), Anne Villamil and Nicholas Yannelis (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Co-sponsored by Modern Greek Studies and the Hellenic Students Association

Narrative Skeptics: C.P. Cavafy and Gore Vidal Write on Julian the Apostate

November 16, 2010
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speaker: George Syrimis (Hellenic Studies and Comparative Literature, Yale University)

Mediterranean Vices

December 2, 2010
3rd Floor, Levis Faculty Center

The Burden and the Glory: The Idea of Tradition in Modern Greece

December 4, 2010
National Hellenic Museum, Chicago
Guest speaker: Michael Herzfeld (Department of Anthropology, Harvard University)

The New Sick Man of Europe? Greece in Crisis

February 24, 2011
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speaker: Iason Athanassiadis (Middle East Photojournalist & Documentary Film Maker)

Aegean Light: Watercolors and Sketches from the Greek Islands

March 14, 2011
Plym Auditorium, Temple Buell Hall
Guest speaker: Paul Laseau (Professor Emeritus of Architecture, Ball State University)
Co-sponsored by Modern Greek Studies

Documentary film: "Dreams in another language" (Best Greek Documentary 2010)

March 29, 2011
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speakers: Lucia Rikaki (Film Director; from Athens via skype) and Mary Kalantzis (Dean, College of Education)

Academic Year 2011-2012

Award ceremony: Houston and Papadimitriou Greek culture awards 2011

Saturday, September 10, 2011
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building
Guest speaker: Bill Cope (College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

1st Greek Film Fest Chicago

September 30 - October 2, 2011
Co-sponsored by Modern Greek Studies

Odysseas Elytis (November 2, 1911 - March 18, 1996): A tribute to the poet and his work on the centenary of his birth

November 2, 2011
Lucy Ellis lounge, Foreign Languages Building, 1PM