Athena is well known as the goddess of wisdom, crafts, and, above all, warfare among the Greeks. She was the most excellent daughter of Zeus, who sprung fully-formed from his head, and came to be the foremost protector of the polis. But where did this idea of a female warrior deity come from within the Greek world? This talk will examine the early origins of the Greek warrior goddess, going back to the Bronze Age and tracing her emergence, piece by piece, into the Iron Age and later periods. Alongside this deeper history, comparisons will be made to warrior goddesses from the Levant and Mesopotamia to make sense of Athena's character, and her remarkable transformation over the centuries into the illustrious protector of the Greek polis.

The village of Molyvos in Lesvos inherited the ancient town’s political and ecclesiastical importance to become, under the Ottomans, the centre for the district (kaza). This presentation explores its fascinating history through a family archive assembled spanning over 100 years of history (1830s-1940s), and a young man's memoir from the late 19th c. We explore family memory and history during a transition from empire to nation state – a world still tangible, but passing away in social and cultural flux.

Every November 21, the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of the Entrance of the Virgin into the Temple. Byzantine art depicts the Virgin processing to the ancient Jewish Temple with her parents, Joachim and Anna, along with a retinue of candle-bearing maidens. The Virgin is also often shown inside the Temple, enthroned in the Holy of Holies, receiving bread from an angel. This feast portrays the Virgin as the living Temple of the Son of God. Similarly, early Christian and Byzantine sources often described the Virgin Mary as a symbol of the Church. In Byzantine churches, liturgical objects and monumental images of the Entrance of the Virgin into the Temple encouraged worshippers to understand their own ritual experience as an imitation of the Virgin’s Entrance into the Temple and evoked rich theological parallels between the Virgin Mary, the Temple, and the Church.

In this talk, we explore the great Macedonian philosopher and his work. Hector Williams will talk about the man – born in Stagira in Macedonia to the court physician of Philip II of Macedon, a follower of Plato at the Academy in Athens, tutor to Alexander the Great, a researcher for two years on the island of Lesbos, and the founder of the second great philosophical school in Athens, the Lyceum. Recent Greek excavations at Stagira have told us something about his patridha while work by the philosopher/biologist Jason Tipton has made clear his remarkable research on the fish of the Gulf of Kalloni. Michael Griffin will introduce key aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy and its enduring significance.

Discover the musical legacy of Markos Vamvakaris, the composer, poet, and musician known as the ‘patriarch of rebetiko’, whose artistic output had a lasting influence on the genre. In this presentation, the Zefyros dance group from the Hellenic Community of Vancouver, together with local musicians, will present a taverna scene from the 1940s, featuring songs by Vamvakaris, and a variety of dances. 

What is truth? How do we know it or take anybody’s word for it? The same questions affecting Herodotos are of paramount interest to Greek historians trying to comprehend the so-called “Father of History.”

Ben Jonson famously wrote that Shakespeare had ‘small Latin and less Greek’. This lecture will provide context for that comment, exploring Shakespeare’s engagement with ancient Greece, while also looking at the broader cultural picture of the place of the Greeks in early modern England.

The Pythia, priestess at Delphi, was said to ‘count the grains of the sands and measure the sea’, to witness the future and see the heart of Zeus. According to legend, she helped to found countless ancient Greek city-states, dictated their codes of law, and inspired philosophers from Pythagoras and Socrates to Cicero. How did the Oracle succeed and flourish?