Humanities Research Centre – Visiting Speaker’s Fund – Professor Yannis Hamilakis

Outputs Supported Through the Visiting Speaker’s Fund

1) Keynote lecture for the Classical Association Annual Conference, the field-leading conference in Classics in the UK.

2) Research and Career-Development Seminar for Postgraduate Students in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Warwick.

Description Of Outputs

Funds from the HRC Visiting Speaker’s Fund in combination with a contribution from the Department of Classics and Ancient History supported the travel and accommodation of Professor Yannis Hamilakis, a world-leading scholar, to deliver the keynote lecture at the UK field-leading Classical Association (CA) conference which Warwick hosted during May 22-24, 2024.

Professor Yannis Hamilakis is an extremely high profile archaeologist and scholar in the area of the socio-politics of the past (Greece especially) and is currently the Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Modern Greek Studies at Brown University.

Professor Hamilakis’ keynote lecture, entitled, Undoing Monumental Racecraft: The Acropolis Otherwise was delivered on the afternoon of Friday March 22, 2024 on Oculus 1.05 to an international audience of approximately 270 Classicists. Professor Hamilakis’ talk presented a dissection of the Athenian Acropolis as it is traditionally presented – a monument to Classical Athens. He presented how and why the acropolis was ‘cleansed’ of its non-Classical past during the 19th century in order to present very specific messages about these monuments that were heavily informed by European nationalisms of the time. The lecture then presented would-be 19th century plans for the Acropolis that were proposed by a Bavarian architect who was employed by the newly established Greek monarchy. These plans included locating a royal palace, and even a horse-racing track on top of the hill.

Professor Hamilakis then presented evidence from the traditionally overlooked Medieval and the Ottoman periods, and presented a very strong case for why we need to re-consider these traditions as valuable stakeholders in the history of this monument. Two of the particularly fascinating case studies presented related to the largely discarded remains of Ottoman-era headstones from a cemetery at the entrance to the Acropolis, as well as evidence for a community of enslaved people of African origin who lived at the base of the Acropolis in the 18th century. Both communities have been more-orless completely written out of the history of the Acropolis in favour of the traditional presentation of a ‘pure’ Classical Greek monument which has been heavily informed by 19th century nationalism which has its origins in a different part of Europe. This lecture calls for a reassessment and a considered decolonisation of the Acropolis by those of us who teach using its monuments. Presenting a longer-term and diverse history/archaeology of the Acropolis enables a more careful contextualisation of the monuments, and enables us to question the historiography around, and the reception of, what is all-too-often framed as an iconic feature of ‘western’ culture.

The keynote lecture did not have a question session, but The Classical Association (CA) run a promotional campaign for this conference, part of this strategy includes Twitter/X. On Jan 30, 2024, as requested, I sent the @HRCWarwick to the organising committee to pass along to the CA communications team for use in promotions regarding the keynote lecture. the CA conference held a drinks event in the Agora of the Faculty of Arts Building during which Professor Hamilakis fielded a range of questions about the lecture from colleagues across our discipline.

On the morning of March 23, Professor Hamilakis held a hybrid-seminar in the Faculty of Arts Building for Postgraduate Researchers in the Department of Classics and Ancient History. This even was attended by seven postgraduate (PG herein) researchers, Professor Hamilakis and the author. The seminar discussion began with questions from the postgraduate community about the keynote lecture that took place on the previous night. That particular discussion focused on the would-be 19th century development plans for the Acropolis as well as the active process of prioritising specific archaeological and historical phases of a site for presentation. On Professor Hamilakis’ direction, the seminar discussion then moved on to cover more practical topics that were of specific interest to the postgraduate community in Classics and Ancient History.

These topics included:

• Developing an academic career.

• Strategic publishing.

• Navigating disciplinary boundaries in research.

• Developing PhD projects.

The seminar discussion was lively, and lasted slightly beyond the scheduled 1-hour time slot. Online participation was facilitated using Microsoft Teams and a ‘Meeting Owl’, which proved to be an excellent tool for ensuring both audio and visual participation by the online attendees. The postgraduate students from Classics and Ancient History were happy to ask questions and to listen to advice/suggestions from Professor Hamilakis. Oral feedback provided to me from the participants indicated that this was a helpful and engaging session.

The original aims of this application were to secure financial support from the Visiting Speaker’s Fund in order to bring a field-leading scholar to the University of Warwick. This speaker, Professor Hamilakis, was to deliver a keynote address at the largest annual UK conference in our discipline (the Classical Association Conference) and to lead a seminar discussion with postgraduate students from the Department of Classics and Ancient History. These aims were all met, and the number of attendees and engagement at both the keynote lecture and the seminar exceeded our initial aims.