Aristotle University Turns Spotlight on Greek Australian Writers
by Bill Giannopoulos · Greek City TimesAristotle University of Thessaloniki will put Greek Australian literature in the spotlight at a free online symposium on 6 November, with novelist Christos Tsiolkas as guest of honour.
The symposium is titled “Greek-Australians Write Back!: Voices of Change”. It runs on Zoom from 9am to 3pm Greek time on Friday 6 November. For Australian viewers, that means 6pm to midnight in Sydney and Melbourne.
Entry to the Greek Australian literature symposium is free. However, anyone who wants to watch must register in advance to receive the Zoom link, ERT said.
The Department of English Literature and Culture at the university’s School of English is running the event. Its aim is to highlight the voices of Greek Australian literature and criticism, ERT said. In particular, it will focus on change, identity and the diaspora’s cultural contribution.
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Greek Australian writers join Tsiolkas
Tsiolkas is the Melbourne-born author best known for The Slap. He also wrote Loaded, The Jesus Man, Dead Europe, Barracuda, Damascus, 7½ and The In-Between.
Translators have taken his books into more than 30 languages. Several have also reached film and television. Although he tackles taboo themes such as homosexuality and the migrant experience, he still wins readers worldwide, ERT said.
Nine more voices of Greek Australian literature will also take part. First, there is Daphne Arapakis, a doctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne. Then come poet and performer Koraly Dimitriadis, cultural historian Konstandina Dounis and writer Dean Kalimniou.
Academic Vrasidas Karalis and Professor Nikos Papastergiadis are also on the program. So are diaspora historian Andonis Piperoglou, playwright Helen Tsefala and award-winning journalist Helen Vatsikopoulos.
Oceania on the syllabus
Theodora Patrona started the symposium. She belongs to the laboratory teaching staff at the university’s English department. In fact, she has turned her academic focus to Australia.
She designed the course “Texts and Cultures of Oceania”. There, students read Australian writers and trace Australian identity in their work. Overall, it spans colonial times through to the multicultural present.
Patrona also spoke about Greek Australian literature on Voice of Greece’s cultural program “Apotyposma” with Fouli Zavitsanou. Above all, she said readers in Greece need to know this unusual, many-sided field better.
Founded in 1925, Aristotle University is the largest university in Greece. The symposium adds to other links between Greece and Greek Australian creators. In October, for instance, Kythera unveiled a cultural centre honouring filmmaker George Miller.
Source: ERT NEWS
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