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Harvard Summer Program in Olympia and Nafplio, Greece

A survey of cross-cultural interaction from ancient times to the present

Faculty: Gregory Nagy and Olympia Fellows

Olympia—birthplace of the Olympic Games—is a historical and symbolic reminder of the ideals of peace and international cooperation. Inspired by this unique site, the program seeks to promote cross-cultural understanding by combining historical, literary, philosophical, and linguistic approaches to cultural exchange. In the second half of the program we move to the facilities of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Nafplio, a seaside town full of modern Greek history. Students are exposed to historical periods from the ancient world to the medieval and modern eras. Thanks to the wide-ranging interests of its faculty, the program offers a rich curriculum that includes seminars, guest lectures, and weekend excursions, such as guided tours, and dramatic and musical performances in the most important historical and archaeological sites of Greece. In the past 8 years, the program has attracted students from many countries, including the United States, England, France, Bulgaria, Greece, Guatemala, Turkey, China, and the Philippines.

Note: The first 3 weeks are spent in Olympia and the last 2 weeks in Nafplio. Students are expected to arrive in Olympia on the weekend preceding the beginning of the program. Two bus trips will be arranged on Saturday, June 26, and Sunday, June 27, to take students from Athens International Airport to Olympia. Successful candidates are notified of the 2 departure times in late spring.

There are weekend visits to important sites in different parts of Greece, such as Athens, Delphi, Sparta, and Mystras/Monemvasia. During the week, there are also shorter beach-trips near Olympia and Nafplio. Archaeological visits to sites closer to our bases include ancient Olympia, Mycenae, and the theater of Epidaurus—where we attend a dramatic performance.

Course of study

For this course and its seminars, there are no prerequisites required. All seminars are in English, and students are always surrounded by proficient users of the English language. Student do have the opportunity to pick up some Greek, if they wish, through their interactions with Greek students and the immersion in the towns and experiences of Olympia, Nafplio, and the various other places we visit across Greece.

LITR S-107 Study Abroad in Greece: Cross-Cultural Contact Between East and West from Ancient Times to the Present (32256)

Dimiter G. Angelov, Panagiota Batsaki, Sahar Bazzaz, Dimitris J. Kastritsis, Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, Gregory Nagy, Anna Stavrakopoulou, and George Syrimis.

(8 credits: UN, GR) Limited enrollment

This course focuses on the problems and possibilities of cross-cultural contact between East and West from ancient times to the present. Its aim is to expose students to historical, philosophical, literary, and political models for studying this interaction through a series of interrelated weeklong seminars. Seminar topics are listed below.

Prerequisites: none.

Note: 2009 seminars below, 2010 will be similar and available soon.

I. Empire

A. Homer as a “Spokesman” for the Athenian Empire (Gregory Nagy)

The earliest form of the Athenian empire, the Delian League, was considered an expression of Ionian identity. This identity, once centered on the sacred island of Delos, was modified when the Treasury of the Delian League was transferred from Delos to Athens, sometime around the middle of the fifth century BC. In terms of this transfer, the Ionian identity of the empire could be maintained and even reaffirmed most consistently on the basis of the idea that Athens is the mother city, or metropolis, of all Ionian cities.

 A spokesman for the ideological world of the Delian League—and for the political reality of the Athenian empire—was Homer himself, figured as a universal poet and educator. This Homer was an imperial Homer, ideologized as koinos (“common”) to all Hellenes—at least, to all Hellenes in the Athenian empire. The status of Homer as the koinos polites (“common citizen”) of all Ionian cities is linked to his central role in the pan-Ionian festival of the Delia. That festival, as we know independently from Thucydides, was reshaped in the late fifth century by the Athenian statesman Nikias, who sought to link the myths and rituals of the pan-Ionian Delia with the cultural and political agenda of the Delian League—that is, of the Athenian empire. In this seminar, I offer an analysis of the pan-Ionian festival of the Delia, focusing on the acknowledged role of Homer as the spokesman for the Delia and, by extension, for the Delian League. I then compare the pan-Hellenic festival of the Olympic contests, held in Olympia.

In the seminar, students are guided through a set of relevant readings in translation of selected passages taken from Homeric poetry, and the lives of Homer, Thucydides, and Plato.

B. The Byzantine Empire: Ideology, Propaganda, and Subversion (Dimiter Angelov)

The Byzantine Empire (330–1453), the medieval successor state to imperial Rome, dominated the politics of the Eastern Mediterranean for more than a millennium. By looking at textual and visual sources, this brief seminar explores the Byzantine construction of an ideology of empire—an amalgamation of Near Eastern, Hellenistic, Roman and Christian ideas expressed in art, court rhetoric, diplomacy, and ceremonial—and the ways this ideology was conveyed to the elites and to common people. The course also explores challenges to the ideology of empire, especially in the later period of Byzantine history, ranging from lingering Roman republicanism to Hellenic protonationalism and Platonic social utopias.

C. The Ottoman Empire: Power, Diplomacy, and Representation (Dimitris Kastritsis)

In the classical Ottoman Empire of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, sultanic power was expressed among other areas in art, literature, diplomacy, and the functioning of government itself. This seminar begins by taking a structuralist approach to the centralized Ottoman state of the classical period, which is then complicated by the introduction of dissenting and peripheral voices. By examining a variety of textual and visual sources, including the sultan's palace of Topkapi, we try to gain a basic understanding of the classical Ottoman state and society in all its complexity. In the process, we touch upon more general problems of textual and historical analysis. A recurring theme throughout the seminar is the historical roots of the Ottoman image in Europe, which lingers to this day.

D. Imperial Ways of Knowing: History, Power, and Politics (Sahar Bazzaz)

This seminar explores the links between European modernity and colonial expansion. The diachronic nature of the seminar allows students to think about the processes of change that have brought about the present political, social, and cultural relations among the regions of the Mediterranean. We focus primarily on the Enlightenment and colonialism, looking critically at Edward Said's Orientalism as well as works addressing the question of colonialism by European intellectuals and thinkers, such as Marx, Renan, Comte, Camus, and LeCorbusier.

II. European Encounters

A. Languages of Exile (Yota Batsaki)

Exile is often thought of as geographical displacement, but it may just as well be understood as a linguistic condition. Recent theory dwells on the relationship of language and translation to notions of belonging, often going as far as to expand exile into a universal linguistic predicament. We examine the potential of such thinking to complicate notions of familial or national identity. The seminar engages with theoretical and autobiographical writings on exile, translation, and cosmopolitanism—Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, Barbara Johnson—and with 2 literary fictions by Rhea Galanaki and Amin Maalouf, built around the lives of real, if scantly known, exiles.

B. Mediterranean Encounters in the Modern Period, 1850–2000 (Ilham Khuri-Makdisi)

This seminar explores the Mediterranean as a space of encounters, circulations, and exchanges of people, commodities, ideas, and ideologies but also as a space that divides as well as unites. We also analyze the construction of various discourses on the Mediterranean, such as the infamous concept of Mediterraneita promoted by Italian fascism, and connect these discourses to political projects. The seminar uses visual material, such as photographs and postcards, as well as primary sources, such as guidebooks, travel journals, and political speeches.

C. Late Nineteenth-Century Star Actors and Their Rise to International Fame (Anna Stavrakopoulou)

In the second half of the nineteenth century, while the Romantic movement was ceding its place to other literary movements, major changes took place representing a turning point in theater history—the shaping of the first stage directors in Europe, as well as the emergence of major playwrights, like Henrik Ibsen, who revolutionized the stage with his dramas. At the same time, at the peak of colonialism, Europe started exporting stage actors who dazzled audiences at the Comédie Francaise and Broadway alike. In this course we explore the star system of the time, with Adelaide Ristori, Eleonora Duse, Benoit-Constant Coquelin, and above all Sarah Bernhardt, who broke the barriers of their countries and gained international acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic.

D. “Our Greece”: Western Visions of Greece (George Syrimis)

This seminar examines the constructions of the terms “Hellenic” and “Greece” from the Enlightenment to the present through the prism of what we have come to call Western culture. The course explores the relationship between adaptation and interpretation through various media—literature, film, philosophy, literary criticism—as well as the social movements that have informed our concept of the Hellenic (political, sexual, aesthetic, religious, etc.). The seminar addresses the way in which ancient Greek civilization was refigured as an ideal cultural template, symbolic origin, and philosophical reflection for both contemporary Greeks and European Philhellenes. Materials include work by Winckelmann, Lord Byron, Georgios Vizyenos, Thomas Mann, Cavafy, Nietzsche, Gyorgy Lukacs, Stratis Myrivilis, and Gore Vidal.

Course credit

See Study Abroad Credit Information.

Faculty

Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature in the Department of the Classics and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University; Director, Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC

Senior Fellows

Dimiter G. Angelov (Medieval and Byzantine History), Lecturer and Research Fellow, University of Birmingham

Yota Batsaki (Comparative Literature), Newton Trust Lecturer in English, Cambridge University

Sahar Bazzaz (History and Middle Eastern Studies), Assistant Professor of History, College of the Holy Cross

Dimitris Kastritsis (History and Middle Eastern Studies), Academic Fellow in Ottoman History, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom

Ilham Khuri-Makdisi (History and Middle Eastern Studies), Assistant Professor of History, Northeastern University

Anna Stavrakopoulou (Theater Studies and Modern Greek Literature), Assistant Professor of Theater Studies, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece

Visiting Fellows

George Syrimis, (Comparative Literature), Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Associate Chair of the Program in Hellenic Studies, Yale University

Application

All students, wherever they study—in the United States or abroad—can apply. In the past, participants have been recent high school graduates, undergraduates, graduate students, or independent scholars. Please note: Students must be at least 18 years old, have completed at least 1 year of college or be a first-year student, and be in good academic standing to apply.

The application materials, outlined below, are due February 5:

• A completed online application (available in early December) that includes:
  • A $50 nonrefundable application fee
  • A supplementary statement that describes interest in the program and any relevant travel experience abroad (previous travel is not a prerequisite), and that exhibits proof of English language proficiency for students whose first language is not English
• Official transcripts (sent directly to the address below; unofficial transcripts are accepted for Harvard College students only)

Transcripts should be addressed as follows:

Matilda West
Study Abroad Coordinator
Harvard Summer School
51 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Students will be notified of admission decisions by late February or early March.

Cost

The cost of the program is $7,000 and a nonrefundable $50 application fee. This covers the following:

• Tuition
• Room, breakfast, and dinner
• All scheduled excursions and extracurricular activities

In addition to the program fee, students are responsible for:

• A health insurance fee ($175; waived if students have US insurance that provides coverage outside the United States)
• Transportation to and from Olympia
• The cost of passports and visas (if the latter is needed)
• Any immunizations

Program directors will advise students of likely additional expenses. A sample budget for estimating expenses will be available soon.

How to pay and funding options

See How to Pay for payment deadlines, deposit amounts, and more information including funding options for Harvard College students.

Accommodations

In Olympia, accommodations are provided in Hotel Europa. Classes take place in a fully equipped seminar room—including video projector, printer, computer, and Internet access—within the hotel. Students share double-occupancy rooms and eat buffet breakfasts and dinners at the hotel; they make their own arrangements for lunch. Dinner is usually eaten outside in the garden. The hotel provides a free wireless Internet connection in every room, a tennis court, and a swimming pool.

In Nafplio we stay at one of the local hotels. Classes take place at the state-of-the-art facilities of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, whose Greek branch was recently inaugurated.

Additional information

Program inquiries:

Contact Teresa Wu, summergreece@chs.harvard.edu.

Academic and administrative coordinators:

• Yota Batsaki, Newton Trust Lecturer, University of Cambridge, UK, pb324@cam.ac.uk
• Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, Assistant Professor, Northeastern University, Boston, i.khuri-makdisi@neu.edu

Students with disabilities should contact the disability services coordinator as soon as possible. See Students with Disabilities for more information.

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