Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria

Please note the change of Venue for the next few seminars

Presenter: Prof Vrasidas Karalis, University of Sydney
Entry: FREE

Synopsis

The work and the personality of Adamantios Koraes (1748-1833) have discussed in many ways; mostly on the baisis of his contribution to the creation of the modern Greek nationalism and his invention of ‘katharevousa’. What has not been discussed is his systematic critique of religion and the ecclesiastical establishment in an attempt to create the foundations for a modern secular state after the Greek Revolution of 1821.

The paper offers a brief discussion his life and work, challenges the traditional view about katharevousa and addresses the issues of secularisation and secular identity as raised by Koraes in many of his works especially in his edition of Paul’s Letter to Timothy and his translation of Aristotle’s Politics.

The project of political secularisation as envisaged by Koraes remains to this day one of the most incomplete projects of modernity and modernisation in Greek social culture and polity. In an era of social implosion Koraes’ legacy should be revisited and re-interpreted-the paper discusses the possibilities of such a reinterpretation.

Bio

Vrasidas Karalis holds the Sir Nicholas Laurantos Chair in Modern Greek Studies and Byzantine at the University of Sydney

He has published on Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Cornelius Castoriadis, Theo Angelopoulos, Andrey Tarkovsky, Alfred Hitchcock, European Cinema and Global Cinemas. His latest publications include A History of Greek Cinema (2012) and the forthcoming second volume Realism on Postwar Greek Cinema (I.B. Tauris 2016).

He has also published two volumes of oral history, Recollections of Mr Manoly Lascaris (2007) and The Demons of Athens (2014). He has translated Patrick White’s Voss (1996) into Greek and many Greek poets into English, agonst them, Andrea Angelakis, Nikos Kazouros, Kiki Demoula and Odysseas Elytis.

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