2019 Seminar

2019 Summer Seminar: “Material Culture, Place, and the Creation of Memory”
June 12-23, 2019
Seminar Application Deadlines: Friday, February 15 (graduate), Friday, March 8 (undergraduate)

This year’s theme focuses on the importance of material culture: we create community and meaning through the production, use, and exchange of material objects, so can we imagine spaces with different material objects? How has material culture evolved? We can reflect on the concept of material culture and question how the world is experienced through objects, and how we use material objects to organize time and space. The monastery can be used as a “laboratory” to think about the importance of material objects in human life and experience since it is a confined space with objects that have meaning for the community. For example, what does it mean for the nuns of the monastery to live around and between so many historical and sacred objects? What memories do they evoke and how do we balance engagement with the monastery as a living community, and as a trove of historical information?

Sponsored by Princeton’s Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, the seminar is a unique academic experience that allows for exchange with fellow graduate students and undergraduates across departmental boundaries. It is also a very rewarding opportunity to investigate Byzantine, Ottoman, and Modern Greek history, art history, architecture, musicology, theater, anthropology, religion, politics, economics, and culture at a historic monastery in near continuous, active use since the thirteenth century.

Applicants will receive a response to their application in time to make SAFE deadlines. Successful applicants will meet for a pre-seminar session later in the spring semester.

Seminar Directors:
Nikolaos Bakirtzis (Professor, The Cyprus Institute)
Dimitri Gondicas (Professor, Hellenic Studies)

Greek Archaeological Service Participant:
Xenophon Moniaros (9th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities)

Seminar Coordinators:
Sophie Lewis (Music)
Nikitas Tampakis (Library)

Princeton Graduate Students:
Alyssa Cady (Religion)
Nikolas Churik (Classics)
Kutay Onayli (Near Eastern Studies)
Elliot Wilson (Classics)
Bora Yoon (Music)