SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at SFU

04/10/2026

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present Dr. Rosy-Triantafyllia Angelaki, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki!

Join us Friday, April 17th at 2:30pm in person at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 7200, or online (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88391363383), for her talk “Reflections on the Representation of Byzantium in Young Adult and Children’s Literature: Exploring Issues of Identity and Ideology”.

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Dimitris Krallis, Professor, Department of Global Humanities.

Register now! https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/representation-of-byzantium-in-young-adult-childrens-literature-tickets-1987145470595

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public and will be recorded.

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation(SNF).

ABSTRACT
This talk examines how Byzantium is represented in Greek literature for children and adolescents from 1955 to the present, focusing on how the Byzantine past is interpreted and reshaped for young readers. It draws on two distinct research projects conducted over eight years, each analyzing different categories of children’s books about the Byzantine era. The first study looked at thirty-five historical novels, exploring how representations of Byzantium have evolved and how authors connect Byzantine history to Greek identity and multicultural awareness. The second focused on thirty-five nonfiction picture books about Byzantium, a relatively understudied genre that blends factual information with narrative elements. It investigated how these books present reliable, accessible historical knowledge while remaining engaging for young readers. This study also explored categorization, narrative conventions, and the integration of text and images. Finally, it evaluates how these works connect past and present, encourage curiosity, and balance educational and aesthetic goals while avoiding stereotypes and addressing both children and adult readers. Dr. Angelaki's talk brings the findings of the aforementioned studies together to showcase the evolving place of Byzantium in the thought world of young Greeks.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Rosy-Triantafyllia Angelaki is Assistant Professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education, Faculty of Pedagogical Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She teaches courses on historical and critical approaches to children’s literature. She coordinates scientific teams responsible for the evaluation of Hellenic language and literature textbooks for primary education in Greece, is a member of the pool of selected evaluators at the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation, and teaches at the National Centre for Public Administration and Local Government, as well as in a postgraduate program of the Faculty of Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She holds a BA in History, an MA in Turkology and the History of the Balkan Peninsula, and a PhD and Postdoctoral Diploma of Specialization in Children’s Literature and History. She has worked at the Centre for Byzantine Research and, since 2004, has participated in numerous national and international research projects.

She has received scholarships for her studies and research from the Society for Macedonian Studies and the State Scholarships Foundation. For her transcription and translation of Ottoman registers from the Archive of Confiscated Properties of the Public Treasury (Muhallefat Beytü’l-mal) held at the Ottoman State Archives in Istanbul, she was awarded fellowships by the Foundation for Education and European Culture and the Melina Mercouri Foundation. In 2024, she received a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation for her teaching activity, specifically for the instruction of Hellenic language, culture, literature, and the arts at universities in the United States, with the aim of highlighting the contribution of Hellenic culture to the formation of universal civilization. Currently is the academic organizer and coordinator of an educational program focused on innovative teaching approaches to the instruction of the Hellenic language, addressed to educators of the Greek Diaspora. The program was implemented with the funding and in collaboration with the Department of Greek Education of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

04/08/2026

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present Dr. Geoffrey Greatrex, University of Ottawa!

Join us April 10th at 2:30pm in person at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 7200, or online (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82424948616), for his talk “What sort of Late Antiquity? Reflections on Peter Brown’s Journeys of the Mind”.

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Sabrina Higgins, Director of the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies, Hellenic Studies Professor in Aegean and Mediterranean Societies & Cultures, and Associate Professor, Department of Global Humanities.

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public and will be recorded.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/1984576178774

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the relation between Peter Brown’s recent autobiography and our approaches to the period known as Late Antiquity. Whereas Brown is generally positive about the many changes that overtook the Roman empire and society generally at this time, others have been more critical. It is suggested that some aspects of his biography may help to explain his more positive approach, which may not fully do justice to this tumultuous period.

SPEAKER BIO

Geoffrey Greatrex is a professor of Classics at the University of Ottawa, where he has taught since 2001. He studied at Exeter College, Oxford, where he received his doctorate in later Roman history in 1994, after which he held posts at the Open University, U.K., Cardiff University and Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. His research focuses on the late antique eastern empire, in particular Procopius of Caesarea and the reign of Justinian: his monograph, Rome and Persia at War, 502-532, was published in 1998, while a source book, The Roman Eastern Frontiers and the Persian Wars, A.D. 363-630, co-authored with Sam Lieu, appeared in 2002. He subsequently edited a translation and commentary of The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor (Liverpool, 2011) with two collaborators, while more recently he has produced a translation and commentary of Procopius’ Persian Wars for Cambridge University Press (2 vols., 2022) and collaborated with Stephen Mitchell on the third edition of his History of the Later Roman Empire (Hoboken, NJ, 2023); his translation of Procopius’ Persian Wars into Esperanto is due out imminently. He is a senior member of Robinson College, Cambridge, a Member of the Academia Europaea, and has held Humboldt scholarships in Munich and Cologne.

03/30/2026

Join us for an all new event featuring a cultural talk followed by a wine tasting experience!

The Stavros Niarchos Centre Foundation for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University invites you to an evening of Greek wine and culture! Join us as we celebrate Greek viniculture through a brief introductory lecture on the history of Greek wine by John Clerides, owner of Marquis Wine Cellars, followed by a robust wine tasting event where you will be encouraged to explore the vast world of Greek wines and the ways in which the terroir of this remarkable country expresses itself differently in wines ranging from Macedonia to the Peloponnese to Crete. We also encourage you to engage with local award-winning sommelier, Sean Nelson, who will be on hand to answer all of your Greek wine-related questions and guide us through a more nuanced understanding of the wines we are tasting.

DATE: Wednesday, April 22, 2026
TIME: 6pm
LOCATION: Vancouver Lawn, Tennis & Badminton Club, Granville Park, 1630 W15th Ave, Vancouver, BC
COST: $50.00
*19+ ONLY*

Purchase your ticket today! https://www.marquis-wines.com/greek-wine-tasting/?utm_source=Email_marketing&utm_campaign=Thursday_September_3_2020&cmp=1&utm_medium=HTMLEmail

All proceeds from the event will be donated towards the establishment of a scholarship for a local Greek student interested in pursuing a degree in Global Humanities with a focus in Hellenic Studies at SFU.

Event Notes:
Please be aware that this is not a seated event and will be in-person only with 110 tickets total available.

Parking will be available on the street only as the venue parking lot is for members of the Club only. We encourage carpooling with a designated driver or taking an Uber or taxi.

To access the event, please enter by the front stairs and after the first door, ring the buzzer on the left and let the receptionist know that you have arrived for the wine tasting event.

Reception catering will be provided.

Please note that ticket sales will be processed by Marquis Wine Cellars.

This event is co-sponsored by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at SFU, Marquis Wine Cellars, the Hellenic Canadian Congress of BC, and the General of Greece in Vancouver.

About Sean Nelson, Advanced Sommelier

Sean Nelson has spent his life in hospitality, chasing great bottles and even better stories. An Advanced Sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers, he has worked and travelled extensively in the world of wine, collecting certifications including the WSET Advanced and French Wine Scholar along the way.

From 2014 to 2018, Sean led the wine program at Vancouver’s iconic Vij’s Restaurant, where the list earned Platinum at the Vancouver Wine Festival Awards of Excellence three years in a row. In 2017, Wine Enthusiast named Vij’s one of Canada’s Top 10 Wine Restaurants, and in 2018 Sean was crowned BC Sommelier of the Year before winning the Somm Slam competition at the International Chefs Congress in New York.

Today he runs Somm Wine Guy Consulting, creating thoughtful wine programs, private tastings, curated wine club boxes, and lively public events across Vancouver. His focus is simple: helping people discover wines they love and creating memorable experiences around the table.

Follow along at sommwineguy.com or Somm Wine Guy Consulting


This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

03/23/2026

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present Dr. Robert S. Nelson, Yale University!

Join us March 27th at 2:30pm in person at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 7200, or online (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82547895466), for his talk “The Life and Times of a Golden Gospel Lectionary”.

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Evan Freeman, Assistant Professor, Department of Global Humanities.

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public and will be recorded.

Register now: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/1985729576618

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

ABSTRACT

A rare text of the Gospel lections written entirely in gold ink had several elite owners from the patriarchate and imperial palace in Constantinople, to the cathedral of the Empire of Trebizond, an emigre Greek bishop in Italy, Pope Julius II in Rome, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, before being given to the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. Each valued the object for different purposes, which allows its biography to be described in detail. Thus, the manuscript is a case study of its prestige and importance in the Greek East and the Latin West.

SPEAKER BIO

Dr. Robert S. Nelson is an emeritus professor of the history of art Yale University and the University of Chicago, He studied and taught medieval art, mainly in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the history and methods of art history. He was the co-curator of Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2006-2007. His book, Hagia Sophia, 1850-1950, 2004, asks how the cathedral of Constantinople, once ignored or despised, came to be regarded as one of the great monuments of world architecture. Current projects involve the history of the Greek lectionary, the reuse of Byzantine art in Venice, the social lives of illuminated Greek manuscripts in Byzantium and their reception in Renaissance Italy and the collecting of Byzantine art in twentieth-century Europe and America.

03/19/2026

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies is pleased to present Dr. Lamprini Rori, Assistant Professor in Political Analysis at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and her talk "Crisis, Extremism, and Democratic Resilience: Evidence on Political Violence in Greece".

DATE: Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 7pm

LOCATION: Segal School of Business, SFU, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC

Register now! https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/1983470063353

The event will be moderated by Global Humanities Assistant Professor James Horncastle, the holder of the Edward and Emily McWhinney Professorship in International Relations.

This event is free and open to the public, however registration is required. The lecture will be followed by an question and answer period and then a informal reception. Guests will be treated to light appetizers and have access to a cash bar.

Please note that this is an in-person event and it will not be live-streamed.

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

ABSTRACT

Greece offers a critical case for studying democratic resilience under prolonged strain. The Third Greek Republic—established in 1974 after the collapse of the 1967–74 military regime—is marked by recurrent political violence from its outset, including revolutionary left-wing terrorism and far-right attacks directed at both ideological opponents and the post-authoritarian democratic order. The dismantling of the 17 November organization in 2002 and subsequent counter-terrorism reforms altered the operating environment, yet violence does not disappear; it mutates.

The crisis decade intensified these dynamics. The December 2008 riots—triggered by the killing of a 15-year-old by a police officer—served as a catalyst for a new phase of radicalization and violent activism. This new phase was later reinforced by the financial crisis, austerity, and political opportunities linked to the refugee crisis and nationalist contention. This analysis shows how democratic stress, shifting political opportunities, and competing extremist ecosystems reshape targets, escalation, and organizational capacity—illuminating the conditions under which democracies absorb, deter, or normalize political violence. A further focus on organized violence highlights contrasting extremist ecologies. The discussion closes by linking patterns of violence to the emotional microfoundations of anti-democratic action—especially ressentiment, hope, and efficacy—as mechanisms that erode or sustain democratic engagement.

03/13/2026

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present Dr. Sophia Handaka, Benaki Museum, Athens!

Join us Friday, March 20th at 2:30pm in person at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 2020, or online (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86280173584), for her talk “Co-curating African Art in a Greek Museum: Identity, Representation, and the Politics of Display”.

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Eirini Kotsovili, Senior Lecturer, Department of Global Humanities.

Register now! https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/1983468590949

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public and will be recorded.

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation(SNF).

ABSTRACT
Drawing from the Benaki Museum’s collection of African art, the participatory exhibition Africa Amongst Us* unfolded at the intersection of visibility and absence, Greekness and Blackness, and the complexities of belonging and representation. The project engaged not only with historical narratives of Africa, but also with the political urgency of the present, foregrounding Afrodiasporic presence in contemporary Athenian society.

This talk reflects on this long-term project as an ongoing curatorial and ethical process, shaped by collaboration, co-design, and forms of co-authorship developed through working with communities. It approaches identity as something continually negotiated within the museum space—between curators, participants, objects, and audiences—while examining how African cultures are mediated within a Greek institutional framework and how museums operate as civic spaces where dialogue, knowledge, and social presence are continually reconfigured.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Sophia Handaka is Curator of World Cultures at the Benaki Museum in Athens and Co-Founder and Host of the CoMuseum International Conference. In both roles, she advances human-centred cultural practice and values-based leadership, positioning museums as key drivers of social transformation and a more sustainable future. Sophia holds a DPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford and has over twenty-five years of professional experience in culture, heritage, and museums. Her work spans exhibitions, publications, public programmes, research projects, partnerships, consultancy, public talks and university teaching. She is a member of the Hellenic U.S. Alumni, and Bosch Alumni networks, as well as Culture for Change, and a 2019 Fellow of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. In 2023, she co-authored a policy study on Greece’s cultural and creative sector focusing on social impact (for diaNEOsis). Her recent exhibition Africa Amongst Us* (Benaki Museum, 2025) was widely recognised for its democratic and participatory approach.

03/13/2026

See what our Director, Dr. Sabrina Higgins, has been working on at the Burnaby Village Museum over Spring Break!

03/06/2026

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present Dr. Kristen Collins, curator of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles!

Join us March 13th at 2:30pm in person at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 7200, or online (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87021068475), for her talk “The Sanctification of Museum Spaces through the Display of Religious Art: Reflections on Icons from Sinai After Twenty Years ”.

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Evan Freeman, Assistant Professor, Department of Global Humanities.

Register now: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/1984566702430

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public and will be recorded.

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Kristen Collins is curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She earned her BA from Mount Holyoke College, MA from Williams College, and PhD from the University of Texas, Austin, all in art history. Recurring themes in her scholarship are transcultural exchange and resonance and reuse in the material culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

She has co-curated several international loan exhibitions: Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (2006), Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister (2013), and Lumen: The Art and Science of Light (2024). Lumen explored the intertwined histories of science and spirituality in premodern art and used contemporary light installations to emphasize the themes of movement, time, and active engagement as they relate to vision and perception.

Since 2002 she has curated and supervised more than 20 exhibitions from the Getty’s permanent collection. A manuscripts specialist, Collins is interested in premodern representations of race and ethnicity across media. Dedicated to mobilizing historical collections to teach an inclusive and diverse past, she co-curated Outcasts: Prejudice and Persecution in the Middle Ages (2018) and Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art (2019).

She co-edited and contributed to the publications Lumen: The Art and Science of Light 800-1600 (2024), Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art (2022), St. Albans and the Markyate Psalter: Seeing and Reading in Twelfth-Century England (2017), The St. Albans Psalter: Painting and Prayer in Medieval England (2013), and Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (2006). Other essays appear in British Art Studies (2017) and Teaching the Global Middle Ages (2022).

02/09/2026

01/29/2026

Please note that our Speaker Series talk for tomorrow, January 30th has been cancelled due to illness and will be rescheduled for Friday, February 13th.

01/23/2026

CANCELLED - rescheduled for Friday, February 13th.
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The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present the 2025/26 Hellenisms Past & Present, Local & Global, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. John Daukas!

Join us January 30th at 2:30pm in person at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 7200, or online (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87960016612), for his talk “Forests of Empire: Timber Production and the Athenian Conquest of Eion”.

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Sabrina Higgins, Director of the SNF Centre at SFU.

Register now! https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/1981437211037

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public and will be recorded.

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

ABSTRACT

Just a few years after the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, Athenians attacked and seized Eion. A small Greek city-state in the Northern Aegean, its connections to Persia were peripheral, and its conquest has sparked scholarly debate as a result. This talk offers one perspective on Eion's conquest, contextualizing it in the Mediterranean timber trade by elucidating its perceived role in Athens' political economy. Seizing and colonizing Eion gave Athenians access to timber resources which allowed them to cheaply satisfy critical military and domestic needs, paving the way for Athens' rise as an imperial power. I will first discuss the importance of timber suitable for building and maintaining Athens' state-of-the-art navy, a topic long noted by scholars. I will then contribute to scholarship by discussing timber's role in construction more broadly as well as timber's role as a source of energy at Athens. Finally, I will touch on the important role that specialized labor played in Eion's capture. By connecting these aspects together, I hope to better contextualize Eion's seizure in what I am calling the "Arboreal Economy.

BIOGRAPHY

John Daukas is an ancient historian whose work broadly centers on imperialism, the ancient economy, and questions of identity in the ancient Mediterranean. His current research focuses on ancient Greek imperialism through the lenses of the ancient economy, especially trade, wealth distribution, and access to resources, and the construction and maintenance of ethnic, political, and interstate communities. His book project, Plotting Empire: The Klerouchy and the Development of Imperialism in the Greek World, traces the development of the klerouchy, an Athenian colonial institution by which the state parceled out plots of new territory to its citizens, and the klerouchy’s role in the development of the notion of imperialism in the Greek world from the Archaic period (early 6th century BCE) into the Hellenistic period (ca. 3rd century BCE). Building on his interests in Numismatics, the study of money and currency, his second project will examine the long history of the war indemnity, or the act of imposing war-related debt on defeated states, in the development of imperialism and its place within the larger histories of finance, debt, and diplomatic relations between Mediterranean states.

01/14/2026

Does your research engage with Hellenic Studies and Ancient Athenian Democracy? Yes? Then we might be the right match for you! The SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at SFU is searching for its next Hellenisms Past and Present, Local and Global Postdoctoral Fellow!

Learn more here! https://www.sfu.ca/hellenic-studies/about-us/employment.html