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The Zamanakos Endowed Lectureship in Hellenic Studies is an annual lecture to be held on behalf of the Hellenic Studies Program of С����Ƶ.

The Hellenic Studies Program is dedicated to forging partnerships between the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the Hellenic-American community of the Greater Merrimack Valley. This annual lecture shall provide a forum for those interested in the historical and cultural contributions made by Greece and the Hellenes around the world. The program is committed to bringing the best in intellectual and cultural events to Lowell to further that goal.

, Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, Union College

When: Thursday, March 20, 2025
Lecture: 6-7 p.m.
Reception: 7-8 p.m.
Where: Coburn Hall 255
Free and open to the public.

At the end of the 3rd century BCE, the Aetolian League named King Attalus I of Pergamon as its Supreme Commander, and Athens renamed a tribe in his honor. Pergamon was a kingdom on the rise, but new and small compared to its mightier neighbors. Why would Greek communities seek this kingdom — by most metrics one of the weakest — as a patron and protector?

This talk will explore how the Attalid dynasty utilized the more malleable metric of “status” to achieve an authority within the Greek world that far-exceeded its military and territorial power.

Sponsored by the С����Ƶ History Department and the Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (FAHSS) Dean’s Office, with support from the Hellenic Cultural and Heritage Society of Lowell.

, Associate Professor, Department of Classics, Brown University

• When: Thursday, March 14, 2024
  • Lecture: 6-7 p.m.
  • Reception: 7-8 p.m.
• Where: Coburn Hall 255

Free and open to the public.

In the decades between the death of George Washington and the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, America’s nation makers — politicians and professors, authors and architects, veterans of the Revolution, and future soldiers of the Civil War — became infatuated with a dream of Greece. Famously, they built houses, banks and even the government buildings of their nation’s new capital in the style of Greek temples. But they also did much more than that: they painted and sculpted Greek themes, modeled their speeches on Greek orations, and established garden cemeteries inspired by ancient Athens’ public burial ground. They wrote the nation’s first history books interweaving the past and patriotism in a distinctly Athenian style. They made pilgrimages to the classical lands and rallied to a new cry of independence when Greek revolutionaries sought American support in a bid for liberation from Ottoman Turkey. They lectured on the Homeric epics, translated Greek plays and poems, philosophized with Plato, and many of them — in the North and South alike — invoked Aristotle to justify the institution of slavery.  

This lecture reconsiders the American ‘Greek Revival’ and its enduring significance, in the context of both the recent bicentennial (in 2021) of the Greek Revolution and the upcoming commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence.

Sponsored by the С����Ƶ History Department and the FAHSS Dean’s Office, with support from the Hellenic Cultural and Heritage Society of Lowell.

Slave Manumissions and Greek Sanctuaries

Professor Elizabeth A. Meyer, Ph.D., University of Virginia

Presented by the Maria Nousias Zamanakos, Alexandria Zamanakos and Alice Fleury Zamanakos Endowed Lectureship in Hellenic Studies.

• When: Thursday, March 23, 2023
  Lecture: 6-7 p.m.
  Reception: 7-8 p.m.
  
• Where: С����Ƶ Inn and Conference Center, 50 Warren St., Lowell, MA

Free and open to the public.

In Apollo’s great sanctuary of Delphi, buildings and the great retaining wall are covered with inscriptions. Many of these have been identified as documents laying out the terms for the emancipation of slaves. But were they? This talk examines the historical setting of, the legal principles behind, and the religious practices informing such inscribing to propose a new interpretation of a habit that was not Delphic in origin and whose major purpose was probably not emancipation at all.

Sponsored by the С����Ƶ History Department and the FAHSS Dean’s Office, with support from the Hellenic Cultural and Heritage Society of Lowell.

Professor. Maria Vassilaki, University of Thessaly, emerita

Presented by the Maria Nousias Zamanakos, Alexandria Zamanakos and Alice Fleury Zamanakos Endowed Lectureship in Hellenic Studies.

• When: Wednesday, April 27, 2022
  • Lecture: 6-7 p.m.
  • Reception: 7-8 p.m.
• Where: С����Ƶ Inn and Conference Center, 50 Warren Street, Lowell, MA
• Free and open to the public.

Professor emerita in Byzantine art history at the University of Thessaly, Maria Vassilaki is an expert on Byzantine icons and has published widely on art, artists and society in the Greek world. She is a trustee of the Benaki Museum and has curated exhibitions in London, Athens and Nicosia.

Sponsored by the С����Ƶ History Department and the FAHSS Dean’s Office, with support from the Hellenic Cultural and Heritage Society of Lowell.

Professor Jonathan M. Hall - "Hellenic Homelands: The Greek Diaspora, Ancient and Modern"