Seeger Center Newsletter

October 2025

A Message from the Director

Greetings from the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies!

Our fall 2025 Hellenic studies seminars, lectures and workshops are in full swing following a vibrant summer season at the Princeton Athens Center. Below, we share recent highlights, including our “Made in Greece” seminar for first-generation and low-income students, a roundup of summer events in Athens, and new books by former Seeger fellows. As always, we welcome the postdoctoral and visiting research fellows who joined our academic community this semester.

For the latest updates, news and events, we invite you to visit our website, hellenic.princeton.edu, and connect with us on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Dimitri Gondicas

Director, Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies

Experiential learning: Athens summer seminar provides transformative experience for

FLI students

A woman lectures next to a painting while students look on.

Eight Princeton students learned about Greek history, art, food, culture and architecture through a 10-day immersion course this summer. Here, Evita Tsokanta (left) talks with students about the Nikolaos Gyzis painting ”The Betrothal of the Children” (1877). Photo courtesy of Soo-Young Kim.

On a sunny morning in May, a quiet residential neighborhood in Athens served as the classroom for eight undergraduates, all rising sophomores from the University’s first-generation and lower-income community. Guided by Princeton lecturer Soo-Young Kim and Greek historian Kostis Karpozilos, students peeled back layer upon layer of history in the cityscape of Kaisariani, learning to read the contemporary Greek buildings like books.

Their conversation continued in a seminar room at the Princeton Athens Center, which provides research and learning opportunities for University scholars and students. The day was part of “Made in Greece,” a new summer program developed by the Seeger Center and made possible by the Inglessis Family Modern Greek Studies Fund, with additional support from the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity (EBCAO).

Article on "Made in Greece"

Director's Bookshelf

In our Director’s Bookshelf series, Dimitri Gondicas speaks with authors from the Center’s academic community about their new books and the research they conducted at Princeton.

Click the buttons below for interviews with Teresa Shawcross and Evangelia (Lina) Chordaki.

Teresa Shawcross interview

Evangelia (Lina) Chordaki interview

Summer 2025 at the Princeton Athens Center: research, teaching and learning

A woman lectures in front of several people next to a screen depicting images of planets including Saturn with rings.

Rachael DeLue lectures at the Princeton Athens Center. Photo by Evangelia (Lina) Chordaki.

The Seeger Center hosted a full slate of Summer Institutes, lectures and workshops at the Princeton Athens Center last summer. An international cohort of students and scholars — including Rachael DeLue, the Christopher Binyon Sarofim '86 Professor in American Art in the Department of Art and Archaeology and the director of the Princeton Humanities Initiative — joined us to present their work.

Article on Princeton Athens Center summer 2025 programs

Visiting and postdoctoral fellows

The Seeger Center has welcomed our new research fellows!

Pictured here are fall 2025 visiting fellow Alexandra Dellios, fall 2025 visiting fellow Nikolaos Zagklas, 2025-26 Mary Seeger O’Boyle Postdoctoral Fellow Claudio Russello, fall 2025 visiting fellow Nicholas Livanos, and fall 2025 visiting fellow Gerassimos D. Pagratis. (Not pictured are fall 2025 visiting fellow George Kouvaros, 2025-26 Hannah Seeger Davis Postdoctoral Fellow Samet Budak, and 2025-26 Mary Seeger O’Boyle Postdoctoral Fellow Stefano Di Pietrantonio.)

Their research interests include Byzantine literature, comparative literature, Modern Greek literature, film and media studies, the history of migrant communities, the history of Orthodox Christian monasticism, the history of Venetian rule in the Eastern Mediterranean, early modern Graeco-Arabic studies, and Ottoman, Islamic, and Mediterranean studies.

Click the buttons below to learn more about our fellows and their research.

Postdoctoral fellows

Visiting fellows

A white building with a staircase leading up to a brown door and a blue two-story townhouse.

hellenic.princeton.edu

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