The 29^TH MGSA SYMPOSIUM

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Session 1 · 3:30-5:15 p.m.

Panel 1A: Taking the Digital Turn: The History of Greeks and Cypriots in Toronto Through Census Data, Maps, and Audiovisual Media

Organizer: Alexandros Balasis · York University

Moderator: Evie Tastsoglou · St. Mary’s University

Sakis Gekas · York University·Who Is a Greek and Why Does It Matter? Greeks in the 1921 and 1931 Canadian Census

Alexandros Balasis· York University · Turning Directories into Digital Space: The Making of Greek Toronto

Theodore Xenophontos · York University ·Beyond 1974: Alternative Perspectives on the Cypriot Diaspora

 

Panel 1B: New and Old Gods: Religion and the Everyday in Greece

Panel Organizer: Paul Melas · UCLA

Moderator: Roland S. Moore · Pacific Institute for Research & Evaluation

Dimitris Antoniou · Columbia University · Of Masjids and Brothels: Ethnography and the Making of Muslim Subjects

Maria Gaglia-Bareli · University of Crete · The Gift, the Commons, and the Making of Community in Ikarian Paniyiria of the Metapolitefsi

Paul Melas · UCLA · Gendered Devotion: Renunciation and Connections on the Holy Mountain

Panel 1C: Transnational Mobility and Networks in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

Organizer: Charalampos Gappas ·University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Moderator: Harris Mylonas · George Washington University

Charis Marantzidou · Columbia University ·From Soldiers to Refugees: The White Army and the Politics of Displacement in the Lemnos Camps, 1920-1923

Charalampos Gappas · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · “Your Excellency, I am a Political Refugee from Turkey”: Anti-Kemalist Networks in Greece in the Interwar Era

Dimitrios Mitsopoulos · Columbia University· Smuggling for the Fatherland: Illicit Mobility and Irredentism

Maria Pantazi · European University Institute · Ruptured Worlds, Enduring Ties: Escape, Survival, and Trajectories of Salonican Jews

 

Session 2·5:30 - 7:15 p.m.

Panel 2A: A North American Exception? Greek Immigrants in Francophone Montréal

Organizer · Dimitrios Machlouta · McGill University, Montreal and Centre des Savoirs sur le Politique · Recherches et Analyses (CESPRA), EHESS, Paris

Moderator: Sakis Gekas · York University

Dimitrios Machlouta · McGill University, Montreal and Centre des Savoirs sur le Politique · Recherches et Analyses (CESPRA)· EHESS, Paris · Reassessing Risk in a Francophone City? Makrygiannis, Greek Political Activism, and Federal Surveillance in Montréal, 1965-1976

Theodore Aretakis · McGill University, Montreal · Intra·Ethnic Conflict and Transethnic Labour Politics in Sixties Greek Montréal: the Origins of the Association des Travailleurs Grecs

Lucas Tsovras · McGill University, Montreal · Godin Chez les Grecs: The Parti Québécois and Greek Montreal (1976-1985)

Laura Bartert · Université de Sherbrooke · Sociolinguistics Aspects of Trilingual Greek Quebecers Speakers: Languages from the First to the Second Generation in Greek Montreal

Panel 2B: Queer Archives, Gendered Lives, and Diasporic Writing

Moderator: April Kalogeropoulos Householder · University of Maryland · Eleni Boukoura Altamoura: A Queer Biography

Amanda Kubic · The University of Michigan & The University of Amsterdam · “Deviance / and Diaspora / Rhyme”: Robin Coste Lewis’s Queer Alexandrian Meditations in Archive of Desire: A Poem in Four Parts for C.P. Cavafy

Vasiliki Lampropoulou · University of Cyprus · Claiming Linguistic and Social Emancipation: Alexandra Papadopoulou between Patriarchal and Language Norms in the Late Nineteenth-Century Greek Diaspora  

Artemis Leontis · University of Michigan · Secrecy, Stutter, and Care: Eva Palmer’s Hidden Letters

Panel 2C: Commerce, Industrialization, and the Making of the Modern Greek State

Moderator:

Alex Billinis · Clemson University · The Greek Princes of King Cotton: The Role of Greek Merchants in Shaping the Nineteenth Century Cotton Trade

Myrto Lamprou · Panteion University · A Saint-Simonian in 1830s Greece: Networks and Visions of an Industrial Utopia

Georgios Nathanail · Duke University · An Uneven Development: The Correctional System in Greece under Otto

Jake Haveles · University of Southern California · “For Commerce and Civilization:” Antislaving Missions, Capitulatory Agreements, and British Extraterritorial Empire in the Aegean, c. 1829-1842

Panel 2D: Borders and the Politics of Mobility

Moderator:

Nikolaos Papanastasiou · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens · The Securitization of Greek Immigration Policy after 2020: A Comparative Analysis of Greece, Italy, and Spain

Pantelis Promponas · University of Thessaly · Mapping the Unseen: Cartography, Racialized Space, and Migrant Deaths in the Mediterranean

Despoina Afentouli ·Queens College, CUNY · How the American Media Portray the Refugee/Immigration Crisis in Greece

 

 

Friday October 16, 2026

Morning Session 3· 9:00 - 10:45 a.m.

Panel 3A: Unravelling aspects of Humanitarian Work in Greece and Egypt during the first half of the 20th century-

Organizer: Merih Erol · Ozyegin University

Moderator: Fevronia Soumakis · Queens College

Eleftheria Daleziou · American School of Classical Studies at Athens · “Dashing and Daring”: Reflecting upon the Work of American Relief Workers in Social Welfare and Health Care Practices in the 1920s and 1930s

Merih Erol · Ozyegin University · Armenian Farm Boys and the Near East Relief in the North: The Local Dynamics of Humanitarian Aid in Interwar Greece

Georgios Argiantopoulos · Royal Holloway, University of London · What Lies Ahead? Securing the Future of the Community and the Nation: The Benaki Girls' Orphanage in 20th Century Alexandria

Panel 3B: Greek America and the Politics of Belonging

Moderator: Neovi M. Karakatsanis · Indiana University South Bend

Jerry Christodoulatos · University of California, San Diego · Normalizing the Junta: Receptions of the Colonels’ Dictatorship and Discourses of Ethnikofrosyni in New York’s Greek-Language Press, 1967-1974

Olga Koulisis · Murray State University · Out on the Greek·American Fringes: David Scondras, Self Identity, and the 1980s

Mary Ikoniadou · Leeds Beckett University · The Politics of the Page: Greek-American Illustrated Periodicals and Transnational Belonging, 1958-1974

Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. · Georgia State University · Greek Games at Barnard College

Panel 3C: From Life to Literature: Exploring Memoir and Autofiction in Contemporary Greek Literature

Organizer & Moderator: Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis · New York Institute of Technology

Joanna Eleftheriou · Christopher Newport University · Greek American Memoir: Telling the Whole Truth

Amanda Michalopoulou · Independent Scholar · Diving without Drowning into the Fictionalized Self

Klara Tsoumpleka · Freie Universität Berlin · Becoming a Character

Panel 3D: Conflict, Repression, and Democratic Transition  

Moderator: Katerina Lagos · California State University, Sacramento

Nick Dallas · University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki) · The Demographic Origins of the Democratic Army of Greece’s Combatants that Arrived in Tashkent in 1949

Athanasios Gkanoulis · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens · Far-Right Parastatal Organizations in the Greek Youth During the Period 1949-1967

Alexandra Ritsatos · University of Washington · Salonikan Workers on Strike: Interethnic Solidarities and Anti·Communist Repression in the Spring and Summer of 1936

Kostis Kornetis · National Hellenic Research Foundation · Delacroix on the 25th April in Athens: Affective Memory and the Greek Metapolitefsi

10:45 · 11:00 a.m. Break

Late Morning Session 4
11:00 - 12:45 p.m.

Panel 4A: Governing Crisis, Mobilizing Society: Intervention, Exception, and Political Authority in Modern Greece and Southern Europe

Organizer: George Souvlis · NOVA University Lisbon

Moderator:

Georgios Giannakopoulos · University of London ·Rethinking Allied Intervention in Greece during the First World War: Thessaloniki and Athens, 1916-1917.

George Souvlis· NOVA University Lisbon · From Liberal Crisis to Authoritarian Rule: Georgios Kondylis and the States of Exception in Interwar Greece.

Charalampos Minasidis · Yale University · “It really is the book for the P[olitical] C[ommissar”: Soviet War Literature and the Quest for the Ideal Political Commissar and Fighter

Magda Fytili · Universidad Complutense de Madrid · Political Motherhood and Moral Resistance in Southern Europe: Greece, Spain and Portugal (1935-1967)

Panel 4B: (Re-)locating Hellenisms: Greek Literature In and Out of Place

Organizer: Ji Wang · Harvard University

Moderator:

Grace Monk · Princeton University · Shipwreck: A Comparative Approach

Alexia Wang · Harvard University · Metalanguage Implaced: Rethinking the Language Question in Greece and China

Anna Coopey · University of St. Andrews · Koutoukas’ Camp (K/C)lassics: Queer Diasporic Aesthetics, Emplacement, and Camping Classical Greece on Off-Off-Broadway

Bart Soethaert · Aristotle University of Thessaloniki · Constructing the Monument: Site·Building, Implacement, and Literary Value Creation for Kazantzakis’s Odyssey in English Translation (1958)

Panel 4C: Administering Displacement: Greece, the Balkans, and the making of International Humanitarian Governance 1941-1947

Organizer: Iakovos Michailidis · Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Moderator:

Iakovos Michailidis · Aristotle University of Thessaloniki · Children of Odysseus: Greek Refugees in the Middle East, 1941-1945

Nikolaos Misolidis · University of Peloponesse & Aristotle University of Thessaloniki · Care, Control, and Repatriation: Greek Displaced Persons in Allied Europe, 1945-1947

Kyriakos Chatzikyriakidis · Aristotle University of Thessaloniki · Welfare, Care, and Reconstruction in Postwar Greece, 1945-1947

Thomas Dimopoulos · Aristotle University of Thessaloniki · Balkan Entanglements and Humanitarian Governance: Displacement, Diplomacy, and Claims-Making in Postwar Greece

Panel 4D: Claiming (in) Eparchia: Ethnographic Accounts on Subjectivities and Knowledge-making in the Greek Periphery

Organizer: Penny Paspali · University of Thessaly

Moderator: Nia Georges · Rice University

Nikos Manolas · University of Macedonia · Africa Begins North of Athens: Toward a Genealogy of Internal Coloniality in Northern Greece

Antonis Petras · University of Thessaly · Disaster Infrastructuralism: Regimes of Energy and Inundation in the Thessalian Plain

Panagiota Paspali · University of Thessaly · “What Could Feminism Be Like in Veria?”: Situated Collective Feminist Knowledge-Making in the Digital-Physical Continuum

Panel 4E: Architecture, Urban Space, and Sensory Experience

Moderator:

Nikoleta Tzani · Municipal Art Gallery of Larissa · G. I. Katsigras Museum · A Greek Body in New York City: Dimitriadis’ Discus Thrower and the Politics of Belonging in Public Space

Ioanna Theocharopoulou · Columbia University · Post-Independence Athens. Everyday Urbanism and the Work of Critical Inventory

Sofia Pitouli · University of California, Los Angeles · Encountering Japan: The Architectural Projects of Dimitris Pikionis

Ismini Gatou · University of Thessaly · Narratives in-Motion: Sensory Mobilities and Contested Spatialities in Central Athens

Lunch 12:15 - 1:45p.m.
12:45 - 2:15 p.m. Lunchtime special session panels

Special Session 1: The Role of Pedagogy in Faculty-Led Study Abroad Programs in Greece

Organizer: Olga Kalentzidou · Indiana University Bloomington

Frank Hess · Indiana University Bloomington

Despina Margomenou · University of Michigan

Olga Kalentzidou · Indiana University Bloomington

1:10 - 2:10 p.m.

Special Session 2: Contesting, Costuming, and Consuming Greekness at Folk Dance Festivals

Organizer: Panayotis League · Florida State University

Panayotis League · Florida State University

Anastasia Panagakos · Cosumnes River College

Christos Papakostas · University of Ioannina

Aristoula Toli · University of Ioannina

Afternoon Session 5· 2:15 - 4:00 p.m.

Panel 5A: Researching the Mariupol Greeks under Conditions of War and Displacement: Sources, Memory, and Heritage Preservation

Organizer: Tatiana Liubchenko · The Union of the Greeks of Ukraine in Greece

Moderator: Natasha Karageorgos · Wesleyan University

Svitlana Arabadzhy · Mariupol State University & University of Oslo ·In Search of Sources: Reconstructing the History of the Port City of Mariupol and Its Greek Community

Margaryta Aradzhyoni · Aristotle University of Thessaloniki · Digitized Photo Collection of Mariupol Greeks' Ritual Bread from the Destroyed Museum: Challenges of Verification and Attribution

Yuliia Labetska · Mariupol State University · Creation and Potential Uses of the Rumeika Songs Archive

Tatiana Liubchenko · The Union of the Greeks of Ukraine in Greece · Preserving the Legacy of the Mariupol Greeks under Conditions of War

Panel 5B: Modern Greek Literary Cultures: Mediation, Modernism, and the Archive

Moderator: Simos Zenios · Stony Brook University, SUNY

Claudio Russello · Princeton University · Competing Cosmopolitanisms: The Polytropic Maps of Greek Translation in the Long 1960s

Orestis Tzirtzilakis · University of Oxford · Ash, Wax, and Laughter: Hysteria and Baubo as Cultural Symptoms in Constantin Christomanos

Trisevgeni Bilia · University of Oxford · Translators of Modernism: The Case of Pavlos Zannas

Ioanna Kouki · Université Toulouse · Jean Jaurès and Université Perpignan Via Domitia · George Seferis, One Hundred Years Later: The Archival Making of Six Nights on the Acropolis

Panel 5C: The Greek Revolution in Transnational and Material Perspective

Moderator:

Constantine Hatzidimitriou · St. John's University · A Reappraisal of George Jarvis and His Role During the Revolution Based on Newly Discovered Sources

Ahmet Karapunar · European University Institute (EUI) · Factional Politics and Transnational Connections in the Greek Revolution, 1812-1833s

Cian O’Donoghue · Stockton University · Through American Eyes: Eli Smith’s Encounters with Greece, 1829

Emily Neumeier · Temple University · An Archaeology of Revolution: Tracing the Abandonment of Souli and Gardiki in the MaterialRecord

Panel 5D: The 1969 Greek Case at the Council of Europe: Human Rights, Testimony, and the Limits of Transitional Justice

Organizer: Katerina Stefatos · Rhode Island School of Design

Moderator: Kostis Kornetis · National Hellenic Research Foundation

Kristine Kjærsgaard · University of Southern Denmark · Greece on Trial: The Scandinavian Applications to the European Human Rights Commission

Víctor Fernández Soriano · Université Libre de Bruxelles · The Greek Connection: Argentine Transitional Justice and the Lessons of the Greek Case

Katerina Stefatos · Rhode Island School of Design · Bodies as Archives: Terror, Resistance, and Transitional Justice in the Aftermath of the Greek Junta

4:00 · 4:15 p.m. Break

Late Afternoon · Session 6
 4:15 - 6:00 p.m. 

Panel 6A: Contested Memory Fields: Displacement, Dictatorship and Democracy (3Ds) in Modern Greece

Panel Organizer: Othon Anastasakis · University of Oxford

Moderator:

Kateřina Králová · Charles University in Prague · Remembering Refugeedom: Memory and Displacement in Contemporary Greece

Marilena Anastasopoulou · University College Dublin · Flight, Fight, and Fraternity: A Century of Asia Minor Refugees in Greece

Katerina Lagos · California State University Sacramento · Memories of “Oxi” and the Metaxas Dictatorship

Othon Anastasakis · University of Oxford · Myth, Silence, and Rupture: Remembering the 1974 Transition to Democracy in Greece

Panel 6B: Writing Place, Imagining Identity in Modern Greek Literature

Moderator: Patricia Felisa Barbeito · Rhode Island School of Design

Gerasimus Katsan · Queens College · (Re)Encountering the Homeland

Christopher Jotischky · Royal Holloway, University of London · Writing the Greek Dandy in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Giorgos Bithymitris · National Centre for Social Research · Rilke and Elytis in the Anthropocene: The Earth as an Enduring Sphere of Resonance  

Panel 6C: Environmental Histories and Ecological Imaginaries in Greece and Cyprus

Moderator:

Effrosyni Rantou · York University · Seeing the Forest: Visualizing Struggles and Ecological Imaginaries

Aliosha Bielenberg · University of California, Berkeley · Mining History: Society, Environment, and Politics in Early-Twentieth-Century Cyprus

Conor Smith · University of Thessaly · Après Moi le Deluge: Land Reclamation, Colonial Ecology, and the Floods of 2023 in Thessaly

Panel 6D: Ghost Images of Home: Second-Generation Memory, Greek Diaspora, and Children’s Literature

Organizer: Anastasia Ulanowiczz · University of Florida

Moderator: Kelly Polychroniou · Boston University

Anastasia Ulanowiczz · University of Florida · Second·Generation Memory and Greece in America

Rosy Triantafyllia Angelaki · Aristotle University of Thessaloniki · Transmitting Greek Diasporic Consciousness Through a Children’s Nonfiction Picturebook: A Second-Generation Perspective

Marianna Missiou · University of the Aegean · Second-Generation Memory and The Child-of-Immigrants Authorship: The Case of Aliki Liacouras Brandenberg

6:15 - 7:30 p.m. Graduate Mixer Organized by the MGSA Graduate Studies Committee

 

Saturday October 17, 2026

Morning · Session 7
8:30 - 10:15 a.m.

Panel 7A: Greek Poetry of the 21st Century and the Afterlife of the Crisis

Organizer: Vassilis Lambropoulos, University of Michigan

Moderator:  

Athina Rossoglou · Ionian University · The Poet of the 21st Century as a Social and Cultural Function

Vassilis Lambropoulos · University of Michigan · The Collaborative Work of Embedded Criticism in the Poetry Generation of the 2000s

Karen Van Dyck · Columbia University · Translation and the Worlding of Greek Poetry

Panel 7B: Media, Performance, and Cultural Expression in Modern Greece 

Moderator:

Nikos Sgouromallis · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens · Illustration and Political Caricature in 19th-Century Satirical Periodicals: From Trakatrouka (1848-1853) to Asmodaios (1875-1885) and Asty (1885-1890)

Nikos Mathioudakis · Hellenic Open University · The Song as Historical Testimony: A Stylometric and Semantic Analysis of Dionysis Savvopoulos’ Lyrics

Michail Lykouris · National Technical University of Athens ·  “Invisible From Their Own Gaze”: The Notion of Gaze in the Oeuvre of Christos Vakalopoulos  

Christina Colanduoni · University of Chicago · Opera Buffa as a “National Malady”: The Politics of Spectacle in Early Nineteenth-Century Corfù 

Panel 7C: New Regimes of Knowledge and Expertise Networks in Postwar Greece

Organizer: Despina Lalaki · The New York City College of Technology

Moderator:

Loukas Freris · Friedrich·Alexander·Universität Erlangen·Nürnberg · Chemical Weapons in Peacetime: DDT and Technoscientific Imaginaries in the Post·War Greek Public Sphere

Despina Lalaki · The New York City College of Technology · CUNY · Decentering Hegemony and the Politics of Knowledge in Cold War Greece

Zinovia Lialiouti · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens · Explaining Greek “Exceptionalis”’: Greek History in the Ideological Imaginary of American Aid

Panel 7D: Diasporic Archives, Political Refugees, and Postmigrant Belonging

Moderator:

Ioanna Mousikoudis · TELEMMe AMU-CNRS · The Decree Law of 1939 "on Foreigners' Associations" and its Impact on the Formation of Greek Collective Activity in France During the Period 1940-1949

Andonis Piperoglou · The University of Melbourne · Beyond Migration, Towards Dispersal: Archiving Australia’s Many Greek Diasporas

Konstantinos Tsourekis Orfanidis · University of Macedonia · Greek Political Refugees in Romania: From Adaptation to Social Mobility in Socialist Romania

Yona Stamatis · University of Illinois Springfield · Negros tou Moria: Sounding Postmigrant Belonging in Contemporary Greece

Break: 10:15 - 10:30 a.m. 

Late Morning · Session 8
10:30 - 12: 15 p.m.

Panel 8A: Language, Philology, and Heritage·Language Education

Moderator:

Ugo Mondini · University of Oxford · Early Modern Greek Schoolbooks and Medieval Linguistic Thought

Maria Sapountzi · Independent Scholar · Teaching Greek to English·Speaking L2 Learners: Linguistic Challenges and Classroom Practices

Vassilios Vertoudakis · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens · Philology As Cultural Mediation:  Translating Ancient Greek Texts in 1930s Greece

Maria Iakovou · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens · New Model New Horizons: the NKUA · Sacramento State University Collaboration for Greek Heritage Learners 

Panel 8B: Rethinking Greek Islands: From Insular Imaginaries to Archipelagic Entanglements

Organizer: Maria Boletsi · University of Amsterdam & Leiden University

Moderator: Elsa Amanatidou · Brown University

Eleni Papargyriou · University of Patras · The Sea, Bodies and the Orange Life Vest: Forced Migration and Refugees in Greek Island Fiction (2008-2018)

Maria Boletsi · University of Amsterdam & Leiden University · Towards Alternative Imaginaries of Greek Islands: Revisiting Literary Archives

Ilios Willemars · Leiden University · Island Echographies: Reflections on a Research Method

Nikolas Kakkoufa · Columbia University · Cyprus Calling: Intimate Solidarities Across the Eastern Mediterranean

Panel 8C: Greeks at War: Experience, Memory, and the Archive

Moderator:

Victoria Rigas-DiDomenico · York University · Photographing Life in Salonika 1914-1918: The Amateur Photography of Foreign Soldiers

Nicholas Alexiou · Queens College, CUNY · Greek and Cypriot Americans in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)

Victoria Salomon · Carleton University · A Woman’s War: Greek Women in the Italian Occupied Dodecanese

Irene Kacandes · Dartmouth College · Revisiting Daddy's War

Panel 8D: Greek Migrations in the Twentieth Century: Journeys, Borders, and Diaspora

Moderator:

Argyrios Sakorafas · Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf · Crossing the Atlantic: Migration Journeys and Shipboard Life Aboard Greek and Mediterranean Transatlantic Liners in the Early Twentieth Century

Yiorgo Topalidis · Flagler College · “They Came in Illegally”: Ottoman Greek Circumvention of Early Twentieth Century Immigration Restrictions

Devon Hayes · California State University, Sacramento · Whispers of the Homeland: The History, Migration, and Cultural Development of the Pontian Greeks

Evmorfia Argyropoulou · Stony Brook University · SUNY · Taste and the Aesthetic of “Greekness” Among Greek Americans in New York

Panel 8E: Knowledge, Translation, and Intellectual Exchange in the Ottoman World

Moderator:

Nicolas Nicolaides · Centre for Asia Minor Studies · Between Empire and Enlightenment: Phanariote Translations of Ottoman History

Polyvia Parara · University of Maryland, College Park · Revisiting the Question of Democracy: A Comparative Study of Rigas Feraios, Adamantios Korais, and Ioannis Kapodistrias 

Stefano Di Pietrantonio · Princeton University · Towards Early Modern Graeco·Arabica: Reading Greek and Writing in Arabic in Ottoman Syria

Lunch - 12:15 - 1:45 p.m.
12:40 - 1:40 p.m. Special panel and poster session
or
12:30 - 1:15p.m. Graduate Mentoring  

Special Session 3: The Gennadius Library: 100 Years of Scholarship

Organizer: Maria Georgopoulou · The Gennadius Library

Kutay Onayli · Oxford University

Alexandra Mourgou · York University

Eleftheria Daleziou · American School of Classical Studies

Maria Georgopoulou · The Gennadius Library

Undergraduate Poster Session  

Yanchi Zheng · Columbia University · Subtitled Subground

Cole Dunning · California State University Sacramento · Aid Under Fire: American Aid During the Greek Civil War 

Claire Smallwood · University of Michigan · Icons and Enemies: The Dual Role of American Influence in the Evolution of the Greek Student Movement, 1960-1974

Afternoon Session 9 · 1:45 - 3:30 p.m.

Panel 9A: Deviants, Transgressors, Kleftes: Listening, Seeing, and Sense·Making in 20th Century Greece

Organizer: Evangelia (Lina) Chordaki · National Hellenic Research Foundation

Moderator:

Yiorgos-Evgenios Douliakas · Universiteit van Amsterdam / Universiteit Leiden ·Fotis Yagoulas and the Law of Pardala

Dimitris Prokos · Princeton University · To Play Is to Steal, to Steal is to Play: Folk Songs, Repetition, and the Politics of Tradition in Modern Greece

Evangelia (Lina) Chordaki · National Hellenic Research Foundation · Epistemic Transgression in the Long Metapolitefsi: Deviance, Knowledge, and Sense-Making in Post-Authoritarian Greece

Alkistis Efthymiou · Panteion University  · Outlaws of History, Outlaws of Cinema: Angelopoulos, Rocha, and the Politics of Transgression

Panel 9B: Classical Reception, Adaptation, and Violence on the Stage

Moderator: Johanna Hanink · Brown University

Clio-Ragna Takas · Harvard University· Cretan Prosopa: Aspects of Revenge in "Erophile"

Enver A. Akova · Stanford University · Christidis’ Antigone: An Early Adaptation in Karamanlidika

Christina Filippaki · American School of Classical Studies in Athens and the Center for Hellenic Studies · Ending Mythic Violence on the Modern Greek Stage

Ilana Freedman · Harvard University · Archaic Blood and Purifying Revision

Panel 9C: Institutions, Social Welfare, and the Regulation of Populations

Moderator:

Evangelia Vertoudaki · British School at Athens · Bodies Under Surveillance: Discourses on Prostitution and the Vourla Complex in Interwar Greece

Rebecca Shoup · University of California, San Diego · The Limits of Law and Order: Policing Prostitution in British Argostoli 

Parthenopi Vergou · University of Macedonia, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies · ‘Citizens of Verified Hellenic Identity’: The Settlement of the Border Regions in Greek Macedonia in the 1950s”

Panel 9D: Memory, Displacement, and Belonging in Divided Cyprus

Moderator:

Finiki Papadopoulou · CUNY Graduate Center · What is an “Event”? Temporal Reconfigurations in Greek·Cypriot Refugees' Narratives of House Visits

Kellan Klaus · The University of Chicago · A Dislocation of the Soul: Orthodox Christian Pilgrimage and Greek Cypriot “Refugee” Struggles in Present-Day Cyprus

Ciara Barrick · University of Michigan · The Polis of “Lefka:” A Topo·Poetic Reading of a Cypriot Landscape

Panel 9E: Voices Across Ottoman Pontus: Exploring Oral Testimonies, Mobility, and Local Identities among the Greeks of the Black Sea in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Organizer: Onur Cezik · University of Toronto

Moderator: Tom Papademetriou · Stockton University 

Sister (Christa) Chrysostomia (Pavlick) · Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology ·Echoes of the Past: Amasya's Greek Legacy and Communal History in Pontus During the Late Ottoman Empire

Onur Cezik · University of Toronto & Ermioni Vlachidou · Simon Fraser University ·  

Negotiating Movement in Late Ottoman Pontus: Unravelling the Histories and Different Life Trajectories of Greek-Orthodox Communities

Aleksandros R. Parasson · Holy Cross Greek School of Theology · Παφραίος, Παβρενός, Μπάφραλης: The Ethnonymic Evolution of Turkophone Rum Identity in Bafra

 

3:30-3:45 p.m. Break

Late Afternoon · Session 10
3:45 - 5: 30 p.m.

Panel 10A: Deeds, Dollars, and Debts: Contested Spaces of Toronto's Greek Diaspora

Organizer: Alexandra Mourgou · York University

Moderator:

Vasilis (Bill) Molos · University of Guelph·Humber · Deeds of Belonging: Property and the Greek Community in Postwar Toronto

Angelo Laskaris · York University · Negotiating Power in the Diaspora: “Charlie Brown,” Peonage, and the Formation of a Greek Ethnic Elite in North American Migration

Alexandra Mourgou · York University · Diasporic Musical Geographies in Toronto: Dancing on Dollars, Gendered Precarity, and the Contested Place-Making in the “Bouzoukadiko”

Panel 10B: Cavafy: Archives, Translation, and Diasporic Modernity

Moderator:

Maria Verdiaki · University of Crete · Alexandria 1882 as a Site of Diasporic Crisis:  Cavafy, Delta, and Daphne Writing Violence and Colonial Modernity

Billie Mitsikakos · University of Oxford · Archiving the Self: C. P. Cavafy's Indecipherable Notes

Melpomeni·Anthia Moschou · Sorbonne University · Cavafian Echoes in the Francophone Literary Community: The Case of Paul Vanderborght and “Lanterne Sourde d’Égypte”

Dimitris Papanikolaou · University of Oxford · Translation, Affect and Queer Cosmopolitanism:  The Making of Fourteen Poems by C. P. Cavafy (London, 1966-1967)

Panel 10C: Memory, Antisemitism, and the Afterlives of Violence

Moderator:

Salih Yasun · Virginia Military Institute· Remembering to forget? The Collective Memory of Vallahades in Grevena and Turkey

Xenia Saratsioti · National and Kapodistrian University of Athens · The Viral Persistence of Hate: Mapping Antisemitic Tropes in Greece during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Alexandra Burkot · Brandeis University · The Mourning Voice: Music for Three Lost Cities in Modern Greek Historiography

Dimitrios Varvaritis · Jewish Museum of Rhodes · “Greek Jews under the Truman Doctrine”: Rae Dalven and her early postwar writings on the Holocaust in Greece

Panel 10D: Everyday Life and Urban Modernity in the Late Ottoman Greek World

Moderator:

Kutay Onayli · Magdalen College, Oxford · Resituating the First “Ottoman” Nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature:  Satire, Censorship, and Popular Reading Between Athens and Istanbul (1876-1919) 

Sefa Mustafa Altın · University of Illinois at Chicago · Rethinking Ottoman·Greek Migration in the Nineteenth-Century Istanbul

Alexandra Koumpouli · Gennadius Library & American School of Classical Studies at Athens · Architecture, Ceremony, and the Performance of Urban Life in Late Ottoman Epirus

 

Sunday, October 18, 2026

9:00 – 10:00 a.m. MGSA Business Meeting open to all MGSA members

10:00 -11:30 a.m. MGSA Executive Board Meeting