1 Jan 2011

Pharos 2010/2011

Monday October 25, 2010 at 7:30 pm
If at first you don’t succeed, fight dirty: magic, curses and love in the ancient Greek world
Professor Siobhan McElduff, UBC Department of Classical, Near East & Religious Studies

Women turned into horses. Voodoo dolls.  Curses, potions and smelly unguents. This talk will examine the wild and sometimes terrifying world of magic in the ancient Greek world - and tell you how to avoid having your spouse turned into a horse


Monday November 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Greek Gods in my Life: 42 Years of Working in Greek Sanctuaries
Professor Hector Williams, UBC Department of Classical, Near East & Religious Studies

Prof. Williams, one of Pharos' founders and former director of the Canadian Institute in Greece, will talk about some of the sacred places of ancient Greece, focusing on sanctuaries of Isis, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis and Athena at which he has worked.


Monday January 31, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Grecian Cohen:  Leonard Cohen and Hydra
Professor Ira Nadel, UBC Department of English

This illustrated talk will explore the long association between the singer/ writer Leonard Cohen and Greece. It will not only explore the use of Greece in his work, but the importance of life on Hydra for his creativity,  productivity and longevity. How, in short, has Greece contributed to Cohen's development as an artist?
 
Professor Nadel's recent book, VARIOUS POSITIONS - A Life of Leonard Cohen - is the first time Cohen himself has worked with a biographer. He contributed many of his never-before-seen letters, scholarly papers, poems, song lyrics and photographs.  While researching this - in Cohen's words - 'benignly tolerated' biography, Nadel went to the island of Hydra, Montreal, Nashville, New York, Los Angeles and the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in the southern California mountains. At each stop, stories and experiences occurred that involved the biographer and his subject, from finding a lost manuscript of his first novel in a California garage to encountering more than one of his former girlfriends. 


Monday February 28, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Exploring an unknown Greek City: the first six years of Greek Canadian fieldwork at Kastro Kallithea in Thessaly
Professor Margiet Haagsma, Department of History & Classics, University of Alberta

Director of the archaeological and architectural survey at the kastro at Kallithea, Greece, Dr. Haagsma's specialty is the archaeology of Greece with a specific focus on ancient urbanization and the archaeology of domestic space. She is especially interested in urbanization processes and domestic organization in mainland Greece during the Classical and Hellenistic periods.

Monday March 28, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Women Ventriloquizing Women: Explorations and Extensions of Classical Myth
Professor Susanna Braund, UBC Department of Classical, Near East & Religious Studies

Prof. Braund will discuss the way in which contemporary women poets and novelists choose to rework stories about women from classical mythology. She will draw on texts by Louise Glück, Margaret Atwood, Marguerite Yourcenar, Carol Ann Duffy, and Ursula K. LeGuin. We will find our writers bringing familiar material out of the realm of story-telling and into the modern world, making it strange and unstrange in curious ways.


Monday April 25, 2011 at 7:30
Greek Music & Dance Evening
Presented by
Dimitrios Kontogiannis and the Dimitrios Dancers and Players



Pharos' 30th Anniversary Season concludes with a festive evening of Greek music and dance.  Refreshments will be served.