Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

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Anastasios Antonaras (Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Lower Gallery, The Art Museum

The Art Museum at Princeton University houses an important glass collection, which is partly exhibited and partly in storage. Anastasios Antonaras aims to study the yet unpublished collection and compile a scholarly catalogue. The collection numbers approximately 500 intact vessels and fragments of high aesthetic value and of great interest for the study of the history of glass. Princeton's glass collections comprise an interesting ensemble of objects, very diverse in forms, dating from two-dimensional ornaments of Pharaonic Egypt to plastically modeled vessels of the Arab caliphates, and including a large number of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine objects. The wide typological range of the objects allows us to follow the stylistic development of several workshops from many Mediterranean regions. The diversity of forms and sizes exemplify the numerous purposes and functions of glass vessels in every day life from antiquity through the Middle Ages.

Anastasios Antonaras graduated from the Archaeology Department of the University of Belgrade (1989), specializing in Medieval Art and Archaeology. He recently completed the Post-graduate Interdisciplinary Course on Museum Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the History and Archaeology Department of the University of Ioannina. From 1992 until 1994 he worked for the Greek Archaeological Service, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities, Thessaloniki, conducting systematic and rescue excavations. Since 1994 he is employed at the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki, working on exhibitions and scholarly publications and, in particular, on the collections of glass, and other minor objects. His published scholarly work focuses on glass objects, embroideries and jewelry of the late Roman and Byzantine periods.  [Last Updated 2004] 

Georgia Farinou-Malamatari (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Humanities Program Building, Room 103

The borders between biographical and novelistic writing have always been blurred. My interest is to study this phenomenon in 20th century Modern Greek Literature on a comparative basis. I will focus (a) on the biographical trend which flourished between the two World Wars under the name of "New Biography," with Strachey in England, Maurois in France, Ludwig in Germany and Zweig in Austria as its most conspicuous representatives both in theory and in practice. They became widely known by the innumerable translations of their work all over the world, a fact that raises the question of why their books became bestsellers, with special attention to their translations into Greek and their impact on modern Greek literary production. (b) On the relations of these "popular" novelistic biographies to the contemporary trend of "post-modern biography" which appeared worldwide in the 1970s. Do the differences in the selection of the biographies, of perspective on the subject and of narrative models indicate new aesthetic and political stances? Three contemporary Greek novels will serve as examples of the Greek response to this contemporary trend.

Georgia Farinou-Malamatari is Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She studied at the University of Athens (Classics, 1974; Byzantine and Modern Greek Literature, 1976), and received her Ph.D. from King's College, London (1983). She has been appointed Visiting Scholar at Harvard (1993) and Visiting Professor at King's College London (1998). She is the author of Narrative Techniques in Papadiamandis' Fiction (2002, in Greek), Yannis Beratis, (1994, in Greek), (editor) Grigorios Xenopoulos: A Selection of his Criticism, (2002, in Greek) and an Anthology of Criticism on Papadiamandis, forthcoming, Crete University Press. She has written several articles on nineteenth and twentieth century modern Greek prose in theoretical and comparative contexts. Her current project is a study of the relation of the novel to biography in the twentieth century, integrating into a theoretical framework (typology and history) close readings of particular Greek novels which take the form of biography, with special reference to those which have artists as their protagonists. Friday, May 7, 2004 2:30 p.m.   [Last Updated 2004] 

Evangelia Hadjitryphonos (European Center of Byzantine and Post Byzantine Monuments, Thessaloniki; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Anne-Marie Bouchi (Department of Art and Archaeology)
Room 103, Humanities Programs Building

This talk will address the problem of terminology and understanding of perimetric spaces, such as ambulatories or peristoa and nartheces, the Byzantine church. Scholars, as well as historical sources, do not use terms consistently with regard to the spaces around the core of the church. The examination and adoption of appropriate terms in connection with the function and the physical appearance of peristoa and their links to the ancient Greek tradition will be presented. Functions and architecture of those spaces vary, but the spaces themselves appear without discontinuities throughout the history of Byzantine architecture. Baptism, burial, commemoration, synaxis, liturgies, accommodation of katechoumenoi and women, are only some of the functions considered. There is also a link with the diakonikon, prothesis, chapels and other spaces. Perimetric spaces are connected with the hierarchy of spaces in a church expressing the heavenly hierarchy within the Orthodox Ekklesia. Symbolism of Divinity and the World of senses and their material limits are important for understanding the composition of a church. The manner how function and architecture serve the theological tenets of the church deserves particular attention. It is through basilicas, centralized and cruciform building types with perimetric spaces, that we can discern the transformations of the element that describes Divinity.

Evangelia Hadjitryphonos studied architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and at the Technische Universitdt of Vienna. She specialized in Monuments Protection and Restoration at the University of Belgrade. She earned her Ph.D. in Architectural History from the Department of Architecture, Aristotle University, Thessalonike. She has spent most of her professional career at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, as head of restoration projects on several Byzantine and Early Ottoman monuments. As the Head of the Office for Promotion of Scientific Research and Education at the European Center of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments (EKEBM), she has been involved in international projects for the study and protection of Byzantine Monuments. Currently she is the Acting Director of EKEBM. She is also the Director of "Aimos - Society for Studies of Medieval Balkan Architecture and Its Preservation," the founder and editor-in-chief of the annual periodical Mnemeio & Perivallon / Monument & Environment. She was the co-editor (with S. Ćurčić) of Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300-1500, and its Preservation and is the co-editor-in-chief (with E. Nikolaidou) of the Deltion-Newsletter of EKEBM. Her book entitled Peristoon in Late Byzantine Church Architecture is currently in press.   [Last Updated 2004] 

Elizabeth Hough (Doctoral Candidate, Department of Anthropology)
Humanities Program Building, Room 103

The material presented in this paper is taken from one chapter of my doctoral dissertation and is broadly concerned with gender relations. I will consider both the gendered dimensions of local-foreign interactions, and how those interactions have in turn altered Symiot ideas about male-female relationships and gender identities. In particular, I will focus on the impact of intermarriage between Symiot men and foreign tourist women.

Elizabeth Hough is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology, Princeton University and a member of the Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars. Her dissertation "Boundaries and Conflicts on the Greek Borderlands of the European Union" is based upon two years cumulative fieldwork on the Dodecanese island of Symi. The dissertation explores the changing relationship between conceptions of 'place' and identity constructions in Symi. Conflicting ideas about place and belonging are shown to reflect upon the social, economic and political processes which have touched the island in recent years - tourism, economic immigration and European Union integration.  [Last Updated 2004] 

Flora Karagianni (Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, Veroia - Hellenic Ministry of Culture; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Respondent: Asen Kirin (University of Georgia, Athens; Visiting Fellow, Program in Hellenic Studies)
Humanities Program Building, Room 103

This presentation deals with the general question of the construction of urban space in Byzantium. In the last decades excavations carried out in northern Greece and more specifically in Macedonia, have uncovered a significant body of valuable archaeological data contributing to the understanding of the Byzantines' organization of residential life. The study of these findings indicates that through the centuries, several factors affected critically the character, form, organization and maintenance of life in the cities. Either natural causes or human factors often determined the survival, the destruction, the prosperity, or the decline of late antique and Byzantine cities, marking stages in their development. In this talk, archaeological data will be presented in order to outline important landmarks of late antique and Byzantine urbanism.

Flora Karagianni studied archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 1999 she received her M.A. on "Byzantine Settlements in Macedonia based on archaeological data" and started her dissertation on the Episcopal churches of the middle Byzantine period. Since 1998 she has been working as an archaeologist of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (11th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, Byzantine Museum of Veria). She took part in several excavations in Macedonia (Thessaloniki, Philippi, Pella, Veroia, Kozani, Kitros) and in Peloponnesus (Argos, Ancient Agora), under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and the Ecole Frangaise d'Athènes. Since 2002, she is a member of a research project on "Byzantine Churches of Cyprus" which is organized by the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Thessaloniki.  [Last Updated 2004] 

Poster with more information
McCormick Hall
Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5 p.m.

A selection of original photographs and drawings by Howard Crosby Butler will be on display May 3 through Oct. 22 on the first floor of McCormick Hall. Titled "The House in Late Antique Syria," the exhibition highlights Syrian residential architecture between the fourth and sixth century. It was conceived by Slobodan Gurhif professor of art and archaeology, in conjunction with his spring seminar, "The Byzantine House." An archaeologist and professor of the history of architecture, Butler was the first director of Princeton's School of Architecture. The photographs and drawings record his expeditions to Syria in the early 1900s.