Berkeley’s Modern Greek and Hellenic Studies Program and the Modern Greek Studies Foundation announce the establishment of the Nikos Kazantzakis Visiting Scholar Program, made possible by a $1 million endowment funded by the San Francisco-based foundation. The program will launch in 2023 to support visiting scholars who focus on modern Greek language, literature, film, history, and culture. Scholars will present an annual Nikos Kazantzakis Lecture and may conduct seminars, engage in research, and perform related academic activities during their residency. The foundation and university also seek to enhance the endowment to fund a full-time professorship or chair in Kazantzakis’s name that will reflect the author’s profound contributions to modern Greek language and literature.
Christine Philliou, professor of history and program director said, “This is a wonderful opportunity to bring new conversations about the fascinating history, culture, and literature of modern Greece to UC Berkeley, adding to the longstanding, world-class programs we have in ancient and Byzantine Greek studies, and connecting up with so many other regional programs and divisions across campus. In honoring the life and work of Nikos Kazantzakis, we honor the complex, beautiful, and often fraught experiences of Greeks in the modern world, both in Greece and in the global diaspora; and we are humbled by the generosity of the Modern Greek Studies Foundation and the trust they have put in us with this gift.“
Nikos Kazantzakis, a giant of modern Greek literature
The endowed visiting scholar program is proudly named after Nikos Kazantzakis, a giant of modern Greek literature, the most widely read modern Greek writer, whose work has been translated into 52 languages, and who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature nine times. His well-known novels include Zorba the Greek, Christ Recrucified, Captain Michalis, and The Last Temptation of Christ. His most personal novel was Report to Greco, an autobiographical tale of his spiritual and intellectual journey. He also was a prolific writer of poetry, theatrical plays, travel journals, children’s books, movie scripts, and profound philosophical essays such as The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises. Kazantzakis may have considered his most important work his epic poem, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, consisting of 24 rhapsodies with 33,333 verses as in Homer’s original. His astounding body of work encompasses enormously wide and diverse aspects of Greek cultural practices and beliefs.
Niki Stavrou, granddaughter of Eleni Kazantzakis and CEO of the Kazantzakis Estate in Athens, pointed out that no other university holds a professorship or chair in the name of Kazantzakis, not even in Greece. “This is a historic achievement for Hellenism and modern Greek literature, as well as a cultural bridge connecting our two countries. To emblazon the name of Nikos Kazantzakis at one of the world’s great universities is an honor to his legacy. This endowed program is a promise that the profound artistic and spiritual beauty of his work will find new audiences across continents for many generations to come, as was the sincere wish of Eleni Kazantzakis. Greece celebrates this event.”
