Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton University

On July 1, students in the Princeton University journalism course “Shockwaves: Reporting on Climate, Migration, and Culture in Greece,” led a conversation at the Princeton Athens Center with two leading Greek journalists, Nektaria Stamouli and Elena Becatoros.

Stamouli is the Eastern Mediterranean correspondent for POLITICO and deputy editor in chief of Kathimerini’s English-language edition. Becatoros is a bureau chief at The Associated Press, where she oversees coverage of southeast Europe. The wide-ranging discussion explored the evolving media landscape and the realities of reporting on contemporary Greece, a place Stamouli described as “a small country with so much news.”

Drawing on lessons from their class and firsthand reporting in Athens, Thessaly and Crete, students asked the veteran journalists about the stories they wish were being covered, the challenges of reporting on migration and climate, and the impact of newsroom cuts on investigative journalism.

Read the full story by our friends at the Princeton University Humanities Council:

JRN 350 Students Lead Conversation at Princeton Athens Center — We seek to foster creative scholarship, transformative teaching, and intellectual collaboration by bringing humanities departments and programs into dialogue with arts and sciences.

A global cohort of researchers shared work on space weather and spiral galaxies at the fourth annual space science and complexity workshop at the Princeton Athens Center last week — and explored ideas for new collaborations with Princeton University.

The Space Physics Group in the Astrophysical Sciences Department at Princeton University partners with the Seeger Center to organize this annual two-day workshop for the enhancement of science and collaborations in space plasma physics and complexity. David McComas, professor of Astrophysical Sciences - Princeton University, and George Livadiotis, a research scientist at the Space Physics Group, co-chaired the workshop.

“We were just delighted to be back at the Princeton Athens Center last week, hosting our fourth annual workshop in space science and complexity,” said McComas. “This recurring event has allowed us to grow an ever-increasing set of collaborations with our Greek colleagues — from graduate students up through faculty.”

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We traveled roads "full of adventure, full of discovery" at the Princeton Athens Center last June, exploring international trends in the humanities and Princeton’s role in the wider world.

On Tuesday, June 23, John Paul Christy, executive director of the Princeton Humanities Initiative, spoke about “Public Humanities Today: Challenges and Opportunities.” Christy works closely with academic leaders at Princeton University to forge the foundation for a new Humanities Institute. At the Princeton Athens Center, he spoke about trends in the public humanities in the U.S. and worldwide. He discussed the importance of public engagement in scholarly disciplines and models for supporting this work at academic and cultural institutions.

“It was a pleasure to engage with such a vibrant, interdisciplinary community of scholars and cultural leaders at the Princeton Athens Center. The Center provided a terrific space for conversations about the global and comparative humanities,” said Christy.

Aly Kassam-Remtulla, vice provost for international affairs and operations, joined us at the Princeton Athens Center on June 24. Kassam-Remtulla, who provides strategic leadership for Princeton’s global engagement, spoke about “Princeton in the World.”

A reception for Princeton University alums and affiliates followed Kassam-Remtulla’s talk. Princeton Club of Greece co-president Alexia Inglessis ’11 hosted the event. Alexia and her sister Ismini Inglessis ’13 are co-presidents of the Princeton Club of Greece and longtime supporters of the Seeger Center through the Inglessis Family Modern Greek Studies Fund.

“It was a pleasure to visit the Princeton Athens Center last month. Seeing firsthand what the extraordinary generosity of Stanley J. Seeger ’52 and his family has made possible was deeply inspiring. The Center provides an exceptional home for the study of ancient, Byzantine, and modern Greece while serving as a vibrant hub for scholarship, dialogue, and international collaboration,” said Kassam-Remtulla.

He added, “One of the highlights of my visit was meeting leaders across Greek academia and the arts. These conversations underscored the remarkable opportunities for partnership between Princeton and Greece’s outstanding academic and cultural institutions.

I also greatly enjoyed connecting with Princeton alumni in Athens and sharing the University’s distinctive approach to international engagement and the breadth of its global partnerships. My sincere thanks to Alexia Inglessis for bringing together our alumni community and to Seeger Center Director Dimitri Gondicas and the entire Seeger Center team for their warm hospitality and for making the visit so memorable.”

Our Modern Greek language program at the Princeton Athens Center concluded another successful summer season!

The students in our introductory Modern Greek Summer Institute wrapped up four weeks of intensive study at the end of June with visits to the Hellenic Parliament and the Cavafy Archive.

We're thrilled our students had a chance to hone their Greek in our seminar rooms and in the city of Athens — and we hope they will explore the Cavafy material and other treasures in the Hellenic collections at Princeton University Library and at the Princeton University Art Museum upon their return to campus!

The Seeger Center's spring 2026 visiting fellows brought expertise in archaeology, classics, history, and literature to our academic community at Princeton, joining the Center from universities in Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Nigeria.

Our new research spotlights showcase the work of Lilia Diamantopolou (LMU Munich, Germany), Myrina Kalaitzi (National Hellenic Research Foundation, Greece), Daniel MacArthur (Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Italy), Przemysław Marciniak (University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland), and Olakunbi Olasope (University of Ibadan, Nigeria).

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The Seeger Center extends warm congratulations to David Jenkins, librarian for Classics, Hellenic Studies, and Linguistics, on his retirement from Princeton University.

Jenkins joined the University in 2009 and is retiring on June 30, 2026. He collaborated with the Center to build the Hellenic collections at Princeton University Library, which now include over 100,000 titles in Byzantine and modern Greek studies, over 15,000 rare books, over 5,000 photographs, and over 1,000 historic maps. He also mentored Hellenic Studies doctoral candidates and visiting and postdoctoral fellows, guiding students through Greek texts line by line.

Justin Willson, an assistant professor of the history of art at Yale University, recalled emailing Jenkins for help during a dissertation-research trip to Moscow, Russia. Willson, who earned his Ph.D. in Art and Archaeology at Princeton in 2020, was then a fourth-year doctoral candidate. While conducting research on diagrams in the archives at the Moscow State Museum, Willson hit a major roadblock in his understanding of the work of 12th-century Byzantine scholar Niketas, Bishop of Maroneia. Willson wrote to Jenkins, who responded by offering to review the material and then meet with Willson via video conference to discuss it.

“That’s the kind of guy he is,” said Willson. “He was so generous with his time. We had a conversation while I was working in the archives in Moscow. We talked over a passage, and he gave his input and looked over my translation. He was a wonderful mentor and tutor.”

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Students, scholars, activists and artists convened at the Princeton Athens Center last week to study race and racialization in a transnational context.

Our newest Summer Institute, “Race and Racialization,” brought together graduate students based in Greece and at Princeton University, as well as practitioners in the arts, education and activism in Greece, for in-depth engagement with key texts in Black studies.

The seminar was held at the Princeton Athens Center June 8-12. Anthropologist Soo-Young Kim and social scientist Marcus Lee led the seminar and a related workshop on June 11 titled “Black Studies: What Is at Stake?”

“The “Race and Racialization” seminar provided an exciting opportunity to consider the global significance of race,” said Lee, an assistant professor of African American Studies, Princeton University. “Witnessing the exchange of ideas between the American and Greek seminar participants was eye-opening and inspiring.”

The cohort included five Princeton doctoral students (in Art & Archaeology, Classics, English, and History), three doctoral students at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Πάντειον Πανεπιστήμιο, Πρύτανις - Panteion University, in Greece (in Anthropology, History, and Sociology), and three practitioners working in Greece.

Students, Artists, and Educators from Princeton and Greece Study "Race and Racialization" at the Princeton Athens Center By Catherine Curan Students, scholars, activists and artists convened at the Princeton Athens Center last week to study race and racialization in a transnational context.Our newest Summer Institute, “Race and Racialization,” brought together graduate students based in Greece and at Princeton, as...

In the latest Ideas Roadshow “Exploring Art History” podcast and Substack, Sam Holzman, assistant professor of art and archaeology and the Stanley J. Seeger ’52 Center for Hellenic Studies, reflects on discovering a career path researching ancient Greek architecture, teaching at Princeton University and in Greece, and collaborating with University colleagues including Basile Baudez, associate professor of art and archaeology.

Samuel Holzman discusses Greek art and archaeology in "Exploring Art History" podcast interview In the latest Ideas Roadshow “Exploring Art History” podcast and Substack, Samuel Holzman, assistant professor of art and archaeology and the Stanley J. Seeger ’52 Center for Hellenic Studies, reflects on discovering a career path researching ancient Greek architecture, teaching at Princeton a...

After sixteen months of online collaboration, four Ph.D. students based in Greece and Turkey visited the Seeger Center to share findings from a Princeton-led digital humanities project on medieval coins.

On April 23, the students presented their research on late antique and early medieval coin finds from Greece and Turkey at a workshop co-sponsored by the Seeger Center. This event was the cohort’s second in-depth workshop, bookending a joint research initiative that began at a numismatics workshop in January 2025 at the Princeton Athens Center.

The event at the Seeger Center marked the culmination of the FLAME Heartlands Project, which was supported by a Magic Grant for Innovation from the Princeton Humanities Council.

FLAME Heartlands is an offshoot of the FLAME project (Framing the Late Antique and early Medieval Economy. These projects research the minting and circulation of coins from 325-750 C.E. and create an open-source database available to scholars anywhere in the world with the touch of a computer cursor.

FLAME Heartlands brought together a team of scholars from Princeton, Greece, and Turkey. The cohort included two doctoral candidates from Greek universities and two from Turkish universities: Didem Dursun (Akdeniz University), Rumeysa Olutaş (Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli Üniversitesi), Dikaios Panteleakis(University of Crete), and Garyfallia Prifti (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki).

Read the full story by Ilia Curto Pelle, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History and project manager for FLAME: https://bit.ly/4e4pPvg

Early-career scholars based in Greece, Princeton, and Turkey Collaborate on Digital Numismatics Research By Ilia Curto PelleAfter sixteen months of online collaboration, four Ph.D. students based in Greece and Turkey visited the Seeger Center to share findings from a Princeton-led digital humanities project on medieval coins.On April 23, the students presented their research on late antique and early m...

Our warmest congratulations to Jiani Fan *21, Comparative Literature Grdauate student, on the publication of “The Reception of Ancient Philosophers in Early Modern France."