Three Lectures by Professor Peter A. Bien
Professor Peter A. Bien has devoted his academic life to the study of the writers of modern Greece, translating and commenting on their work, in both literary and popular periodicals. He has translated three of Kazantzakis’s major novels (The Last Temptation of Christ, Saint Francis, Report to Greco), and Myrivilis’s Life in the Tomb. He is the author of numerous books, has edited a number of anthologies, and his articles and lectures number into the hundreds. A Century of Greek Poetry – 1900-2000, edited by Peter A. Bien, Peter Constantine, Edmund Keeley and Karen Van Dyck, has recently been published by Cosmos Publishing Company. Copies of this comprehensive bilingual collection of Greek poems will be available for sale at the dinner-lecture and Prof. Bien will autograph the books. He has also written, with others, the textbooks Demotic Greek, Volumes I & II, and the recently published Greek Today, which has become the standard manual for teaching Modern Greek at the university level.
1. The Marvel of Greek Poetry: A recitation in English translation of poems by Cavafy, Sikelianos, Seferis, Elytis, Ritsos and others, with commentary.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
7:00 p.m. Ahmanson Auditorium, University Hall 1000
Free Admission
2. Kazantzakis’s Post-Christian Religious Visions: Often condemned as blasphemous, Kazantzakis was intensely religious in a way responsive to our modern understanding of reality. Needing to feel that his life’s meaningfulness was conferred by the cosmological context in which he resided, he searched in all religions and philosophies for his answers.His faith can be called “post-Christian” because, like orthodox Christians, he is unshakably optimistic, believing that the Spirit triumphs. Despite his quarrels with orthodox Christianity, in certain ways, Kazantzakis’s faith is somewhat compatible with elements in the mystical tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
7:00 p.m. Ahmanson Auditorium, University Hall 1000
Free Admission
3. Inventing Greece: The invention of Modern Greek identity in the 19 th & 20 th centuries. Nationalism, at the deepest level, acts as a bulwark against death, fate, and contingency. In short, nationalism replaces religion, taking over attributes previously assigned only to God and claiming qualities for the state that clearly are not true. Indeed, nationalism is invented: it is a fiction. Prof. Bien will examine the theories and concepts, both foreign and Greek, that helped Greece in defining itself during the last two hundred years.
Sunday, October 1, 2006
5:00 p.m. Roski Cafeteria, University Hall.
Special dinner-lecture with The Hellenic University Club.
Reservations and tickets are required.
The lectures by Professor Bien are sponsored by the University Seminars Program of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA). The Bien lectures on the Loyola Marymount University Campus are organized by the Basil P. Caloyeras Center for Modern Greek Studies.
For additional information call 310 338-4463.