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Hellenic Literature SocietyHellenic Literature SocietyThe students at IPKE are handicapped in many respects, unrelated to their hearing loss. Many have associated medical problems. They have virtually no classroom resources in the forms of books, reference materials or visual aids. They have little exposure to Greek Sign Language as used by fluent adults. Their lip-reading skills are weak. They have no electronic aids such as computers, calculators or VCRs. Most have reading levels well below their age expectations.
Along with the DFC at NEMC, we are now organizing support from the Greek and Deaf communities, computer and software marketers, electronic distributors and other interested individuals. We are requesting donations (tax deductible) of new or used children's picture books, simple Greek reading materials, dictionaries, encyclopedias, Greek subtitled videotapes, educational CD-ROM's, calculators, computer equipment, etc. Materials which might be considered out of date or non-marketable in the US, would be very appropriate for these children. While we have not solicited cash donations, all such donations will be spent on needed materials for the school.
We would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this project with the appropriate representative of your organization. Feel free to contact me at (617) 497-5292 (evenings or weekends) or Dr. Glicken at the DFC at (617) 636-5256 (regular business hours).
Review by by Nicholas Constas, Hellenic College (Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora. Reprinted by permission.)
The apostle Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter and, like him, a fisherman from Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee. Although the canonical Gospels mention him several times, he appears in the Acts of the Apostles only in a formulaic list of apostles and is never mentioned in any of the Epistles. The reticence of these early sources, however, was soon redressed by the appearance of a lengthy collection of apocryphal Acts purporting to describe Andrew's epic missionary wanderings through a deluded geography of sorcerers, lemons, resuscitated corpses, cannibals, and monsters. It is not known when these Acts were first compiled, but they were apparently available, and may have been produced, in Alexandrian literary circles by the middle of the second decade of the third century. In what was not an unimportant consideration for their survival, transmission, and influence, the "Acts of Andrew" were ultimately rejected by ecclesiastical authorities as heterodox and, though a process of expurgation and suppression, fell into disuse and textual disrepair. After the definitively withering criticisms of Pfotios in the ninth century, the work as a whole appears to have been lost. However, on the basis of several Greek and Latin works, the text of the original "Acts of Andrew" has recently been reconstructed by two scholars working independently of each other. Jean-Marc Prieur (Acta Andreae Corpus Christianorum, Serles Apocryphorum 5 and 6 Turnhout: Brepols, 1989 and Dennis Ronald MacDonald (The Acts of Andrew and the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of the Cannibals). Texts and Translations 33, Christian Apocrypha 1 (Atlanta: Scholars Press 1990). Despite some similarities, the resulting texts are markedly different and reflect the divergent ideological and methodological presuppositions of their respective editors, who have stated and defended their views in the pages of the journal "Semeia" 38 (1986): 9-26 (=MacDonald's thesis), 27-33 (=Prieur's response), 35-39 (=MacDonald's response). A convenient summary of MacDonald's main argument can also be found on pp 316-18 of the work here under review.
MacDonald's "Christianizing Homer" brings together the results of the author's ongoing engagement with the "Acts of Andrew" and provides the reader with a detailed literary analysis of his critical edition of the text. MacDonald's central thesis is that the "Acts of Andrew" is, among other things, a conscious and learned attempt to transform ancient Greek myth into Christian literature primarily through a sophisticated "rewriting" of Homer's "Odyssey". In MacDonald's terms, the original composition of the "Acts" was a moment of "hypertextual transvaluation," a transformative rewriting of Homer's epic in which the characters in the "hypertext" (i.e. the "Acta," or derivative text) acquire roles and attributes derived from a system of values and found in the "hypotext" (i.e. the "Odyssey," or targeted text). Such an interpretative strategy invite, and indeed depends on, the complicity of the reader who must recognize that the hypertext, through the literary device of "countercharacterization" (generally changes in character and place names), intentionally devalues its model and thereby inverts the social and cultural ideals expressed in the hypotext. The result, in this case, was a Christian "Odyssey" with the apostle Andrew as a literary alternative to Odysseus.
Following a helpful introduction, the first chapter surveys the ambiguous attitudes toward Homer which were espoused both by pagans and Christians who were generally unsettled by the poet's indecorous depiction of the gods. In this context, the transvaluative ambitions of the "Acts" emerges with particular clarity and force. Chapters 2 through 7 catalogue a series of seventy-six literary vignettes from the Acts which find parallels in such works as the "Iliad," the "Odyssey," Plato's "Theatetus, Phaedrus, Phaedo," Euripides' "The Bacchae, The Madness of Heracles," and Apollonius of Rhodes' "Argonautica." A final chapter serves as a postscript and conclusion. MacDonald's arguments are supported by the scholarly apparatus of copius notes and citations which contain much interesting information. Somewhat less satisfying is the profusion of charts, concordances, diagrams, and texts in parallel columns. The latter juxtapose passages from the "Acts" with presumably parallel passages from Greek literature, but the passages are generally given only in English translation often weakening or obscuring the argument for intertextual dependence. Readers will thus disagree on the relative strength, importance, or even legitimacy of some of these parallels some of which may be nothing more than the stock literary and rhetorical commonplaces of late antiquity.
Most important, MacDonald's overall interpretation of the "Acts" as a Christian "Odyssey" depends upon his particular reconstruction of the original text, for if the original form of the "Acts" did not replicate, even if only to "transvalue," the narrative structure of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," then the "Acts" loses its formal significance as a hypertext and the entire dialectic collapses into a series of seventy-six textual allusions. Depending then, on their ideological presupposition and editorial sensibilities, readers may find themselves caught between the Scylla of the "Acts of Andrew" as a "Christianized Homer," or the Charybdis of "Christianizing Homer" as the fabrication of a "Hellenized Andrew." This reviewer harbors some reservations about the methodology employed in the constitution of the 1990 edition. Nevertheless, the evidence which MacDonald now adduces in favor of his thesis is numerous and generally compelling. If some isolated parallels and allusions remain unconvincing, the cumulative effect is undeniable and permit one to read the "Acts of Andrew" as an arresting transformation of ancient Greek epic.
In Myth, Art and Literature, by Hellmut Baumann Greece is a country incredibly rich in flowering plants, with more than 6,000 species documented. Because these plants are virtually the same as those which existed at the time of Homer, they provide modern horticultural enthusiasts and botanists with a direct link to the rich historical world of the ancient Greeks. The author's synthesis of personal exploration and research, combined with the numerous stunning photographs he has taken of the plants in their native habitats, make this book which will both educate and delight the reader interested in the plants of Greece today.
251 pages, 5.2x8.5 inches, Cloth, 30.95
PRIEST OF MUSIC: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos, by William R. Trotter "Priest of Music" is an extraordinary chronicle of one of our century's musical giants. The author captures the essence of a great man's lifelong struggle to remain pure and devoted to music and to people. This amazing story will inspire anyone with a dream to pursue it. His humanity and genius still inspire us all. Now the world has not only the legacy of his lrgendary records but a book to show us the man who set the standards for all true musicians.
495 pages, 6.3x9.3 inches, Cloth, $ 30.95
THE SOVEREIGN SUN, by Odysseus Elytis, translated by Kimon Friar He has a romantic and lyrical mind, which deploys a metaphysic of complete intellectual sensuality - the rocks, the islands, the blue Greek sea, the winds; they are at once "real" and also "signatures" in the alchemical sense. He makes his magic with them, and it is peculiarly Greek magic that he makes. His poems are spells, and they conjure up that eternal Greek world which has haunted and continues to haunt the European consciousness with its hints of a perfection that always remains a possibility. The Greek poet aims his heart and his gift directly at the sublime - for nothing else will do.
200 pages, 5.4x8.4 inches, Paper, $ 18.95
WHO KILLED GEORGE POLK: The Press Covers Up a Death in the Family, by Elias Vlanton with Zak Mettger
Beyond a very competent presentation of the facts, Vlanton demonstrates that, succumbing to cold war pressures, the American press failed to scrutinize with vigor and courage the way Greek and American authorities handled Polk's murder and the ensuing investigation and trial. He effectively challenges the theory that prominent Greek conservatives were responsible for the crime, and that there was a massive cover-up extending from Athens to Washington. Unless substantial new evidence surfaces - which is highly unlikely - Vlanton's meticulously researched and dispassionate account ought to be the last book on the Polk affair.
322 pages, 6.4x9.3 inches, Cloth, $ 27.95
"Tais presbeiais" tns Allagns, o saravtaxrovos omogevns suggrafeas kai pavepistnmiakos Iaswv kaleitai va egkataleipsei tis HPA gia va upnretnsei tn vea Kubervnsn avalambavovtas ergasia sto Frafeio Tupou tns Ellnvikns Presbeias stov Kavada. Tha avtimetwpisei tn dnmosioupallnlikn adiaforia kai tnv elleipsn epithumias probolns kai upostnriksns tns ellnvikns upothesns sto ekswteriko. Yparksiako drama me sourealistikes eksodous. Logos makroperiodos me afrovtisia kai glwssika olisthnmata proforikotntas, pou yposkaptetai apo metafores sta oria tns avatreptikotntas. Keimevo politikns esxatologias me mia duvatn, stnv perigrafn tns, erwtikn sknvn metaksu Iasova kai perastikns Izampel, h opoia omws apoduvamwvetai apo tis avaloges sknves pou amesws meta akolouthouv me tnv nmivomimn Aleksavtra. Domnsn pou evallasei afngnmatikes praktikes aveksoda, parapempovtas se apodomistika protupa.
171 selides, 1995, Paper
OI PRWTES ANAKALYPSEIS MOY: H Orasn, K Akon, To Fws, H Wra, Metrwvtas, H gn kai o Ouravos, tou Delnthavasn
Eksi vea biblia, me thaumasia eikovografnsn. "H Orasn" kai "H Akon" - biblia apo tn seira oi pevtes aisthnseis - mathaivoun sta paidia pws avakaluptoumai osa mas periballouv, ta sxnmata kai ta xrwmata tous, pws akoume kai ksexwrizoume tous nxous. "To Fws" deixvei poso aparaitntos eivai o nlios stous avthrwpous kai sta futa kai poia fwta eivai dnmiourgnma tou avthrwpou. "H Wra" kai to "Metrwvtas" avaferovtai stn snmasia pou exei o xrovos kai oi arithmoi, evw to bibliaraki "H Gn kai o Ouravos" taksideuei ta paidia sto edafos kai sto upedafos tou plavntn mas. S' ola ta biblia tns seiras molis snkwseis ta diafavn film apokaluptovtai alles opseis twv pragmatwv pou ta eksngoun kalutera. Gi' auto isws kai h seira exei favatikous avagvwstes paidia triwv ews eksi xrovwv.
36 selides ekasto, 1995, Paper
The Alexander S. Onassis Center will present "daydreams", an exhibit of laser prints from the "Landform Series" and recent sculpture by Fotini Vurgaropoulou. An opening reception will be held on May 2 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. 58 West 10th Street. (212) 998-3990.
May 4 * Bayside, NY - SPRING CONCERT
The Queensborough Orchestra, led by Conductor Martin Canelakis, will give the final concert of its 25th anniversary season at the Queensborough Community College Theater, Bayside campus, at 8:00 PM. The featured work will be "El Amor Brujo," by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. Admission is $14 for adults and $12 for students and seniors. For ticket information, call (718) 631-6311.
May 5 * Rye, NY - LECTURE
Demetra Velisarios Jaquet, spiritual educator, Orthodox representative and founder of the Women's Orthodox Ministries and Education Network, will speak on "Women in the Church," at 4:30 PM at the Church of Our Saviour, Marros Hall.
May 17 * Astoria, NY - LECTURE
The Hellenic American Women's Council and the Soulioteses Society will sponsor a human rights lecture by Kathryn Cameron Porter. Nicholas Gage will introduce the event. The lecture will take place at the Epirotiko Center in Astoria at 7:00 PM. For further information, call (212) 228-2600 or (718) 680-4208.
May 18 * New York, NY - READING
The Alexander S. Onassis Center and the Greek Writers Association will present "Odysseus Elytis: A Celebration" with Olga Broumas, Andonis Decavalles, Petros Hatjopoulos and Gregory Maninakis. Greenberg Lounge, Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South, 6:00 to 8:30 PM. For more information, call (212) 998-3990.
May 19 * Cambridge, MA - LECTURE
The Helicon Society is sponsoring a lecture and slideshow by Dr. Constantine Hionides, Boston University School of Medicine, entitled "Ancient Greek Monuments and Temples." The Greek Institute, 1038 Massachusetts Ave., 3:30 PM. Admission is free. For more infornation, call (617) 338-0001.
May 20 * New York, NY - PANEL
The Alexander S. Onassis Center and the justice for Cyprus Committee will present a panel discussion on "Cyprus, Twendy-two Years Later: Toward a Settlement or Continued Division?" with Dr. Van Coufoudakis, Dr. Niazi Kizilyurek, Congressman Robert Menendez and Dr. Christos Ioannides. Tischman Auditorium, Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South, 6:30 to 8:30 PM. For more information, call (212) 998-3990.
May 24 * Chicago, IL - LECTURE
Marianne McDonald, Professor of Theater and Classics at the University of California, San Diego will speak on "Ancient Theatre in Modern Times: Japanese and Greek Classical Drama," at Fullerton Hall, The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S Michigan Ave. Co-sponsored by the Classical Art Society and The Art Institute of Chicago. For more information call (312) 443-3697.
June 2 * New York, NY - CONCERT
The Hellenic University Club and the Parnassos Greek Cultural Society will present a classical guitar concert featuring Antigoni Goni at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, 319 East 74th Street, at 3:30 PM. Donation is $10. For more information, contact Athanasia Gregoriades, (212) 989-5391.
June 24-28 * Mexico - CONFERENCE
The International Conference of Modern Greek Language will be held at the National Autonomus University of Mexico.
Australia 18 Italy 3 Brazil 1 Japan 2 Canada 26 Mexico 1 Cyprus 1 Netherlands 3 Denmark 3 New Zealand 2 Finland 1 Norway 1 France 9 Singapore 1 Germany 4 Slovenija 1 Greece 28 Sweden 1 Hong Kong 1 Switzerland 4 Hungary 3 Turkey 2 Ireland 2 United Kingdom 37 Israel 4 United States 367