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What Was Lord Byron Doing in Greece? European Dimensions of the Greek War of Independence

Lecture by Roderick Beaton from King’s College London on December 1, 2016

№ 414/2016 from Nov 25, 2016

Roderick Beaton, a highly regarded scholar of Modern Greek and Byzantine history and the director of the London Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London, will be giving a public lecture on Thursday, December 1, 2016, at 6 p.m. at Freie Universität. He was invited by the Dahlem Humanities Center (DHC) and the Center for Modern Greece (CeMoG) to speak on Lord Byron's participation in the Greek War of Independence. In particular, he will address the relevance of Byron's attitude toward Greece of the 19th century for the political situation in Europe today. The lecture will be held in English. It is public, and admission is free.

As a poet George Gordon Noel Byron, better known as Lord Byron (*1788 in London, †1824 in Messolongi, Greece), struggled with the debt owed by European civilization of the early 19th century to the Hellenes of antiquity as well as the contemporary plight of the modern Greeks. After revolution against the Ottoman Empire broke out in Greece in 1821, Lord Byron chose for political reasons to participate actively. He was convinced that the future of Greece would also help determine the future shape of the European continent. The lecture will examine Lord Byron's philhellenism and will deal with his participation in the Greek War of Independence.

Beaton's publications include the monographs An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature (1999), George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography (2003), and Byron's War (2013). Several of his main fields of research are the national identity formation in Greek literature, European philhellenism, and New Greek literature in a comparative perspective.

Further Information

Time and Location

  • Thursday, December 1, 2016, 6 - 8 p.m.
  • Freie Universität Berlin, Seminar Center (L115), Otto-von-Simson-Straße 26, 14195 Berlin

Contact

  • Katja Heinrich, Dahlem Humanities Center (DHC), Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, k.heinrich@fu-berlin.de
  • Dr. Konstantinos Kosmas, Centrum Modernes Griechenland (CeMoG), Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, info@cemog.fu-berlin.de

Link to the Program

www.fu-berlin.de/sites/dhc/programme/termine/DHC-Lecture-Beaton1.html