Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria

Presenter: Dr K.O. Chong - Gossard.
Venue: The Kelvin Club (click here for map).
Date: 16/05/2013, 7:00pm.
Entry: Free.

This talk explores how the Ancient Greeks endowed their gods and goddesses with human sexuality, both in the worship of their gods in everyday life, and in the myths and legends they told about them. The talk will focus on the virility of male gods (especially Hermes and Zeus) and the sexuality (or lack thereof) of female gods (Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Hestia).

Biography

K.O. was born in the USA in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio, went to grad school in Michigan, and taught at Kalamazoo College before moving to the southern hemisphere in 2001.

Like many of his colleagues in Classics, foreign languages has always been his favourite hobby; in addition to Latin and Ancient Greek, he has pursued German, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Literary Chinese, Russian, and would love to master Biblical Hebrew.

He has a black cat named Oscar; he has a passion for opera (especially Handel and Mozart); he plays the violin and viola; he collects teddy bears (over 250 are in his office!); he adores chocolate; he has a fondness for re-runs of Dark Shadows (that late 1960's American soap opera about the vampire); and he's over 1.9 metres tall. He is also a genealogist and has published books on his Chinese American family in Hawaii.