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| Hellenic studies | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hellenic studies |
| Focus | Classical Greece; Modern Greece; Byzantine Empire; Greek diaspora |
| Subdisciplines | Ancient Greek studies; Byzantine studies; Modern Greek studies; Classical philology; Archaeology; Epigraphy |
| Related | Classics; Byzantine studies; Mediterranean studies; Philology |
Hellenic studies Hellenic studies is an interdisciplinary field encompassing the study of ancient Athens, Sparta, the Macedonian Kingdom, the Byzantine Empire, and modern Greece through literature, history, language, archaeology, art, and cultural transmission. Scholars draw on sources ranging from inscriptions from Delphi and papyri from Oxyrhynchus to manuscripts from Mount Athos and archives in Athens and Constantinople. The field intersects with research on figures and texts such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, Demosthenes, Pindar, Sappho, Hesiod, Xenophon, Polybius, Appian, Procopius, Anna Komnene, Niketas Choniates, John Tzetzes, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and modern writers like Dionysios Solomos, Constantine P. Cavafy, George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, and Nikos Kazantzakis.
The field integrates classical philology centered on texts such as Iliad, Odyssey, Works and Days, and Theogony with archaeological study of sites like Knossos, Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi, Corinth, Ephesus, Pergamon, Thessaloniki, and Pylos. It examines political history from the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Chaeronea and the rise of the Hellenistic period, as well as Byzantine transformations after the Fall of Constantinople and modern developments including the Greek War of Independence and the Treaty of Lausanne. The discipline engages with artistic traditions from vase-painting and sculpture by artists associated with Phidias and Polykleitos to Byzantine iconography and modern painters like El Greco and Giorgos Gounaropoulos.
Development of the field traces through Renaissance humanists who studied Homer and Plato, through Enlightenment-era scholars associated with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, to 19th-century philologists such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and archaeologists like Heinrich Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans. Institutional consolidation occurred with university chairs at University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Berlin, University of Paris, Harvard University, University of Chicago, University of Athens, and museums such as the British Museum, the Louvre, the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 20th-century figures include excavators and epigraphers connected to projects at Knossos Excavations, Mycenae Excavations, Agora Excavations, and papyrology in collections like the Egypt Exploration Society and Bodleian Library. Byzantinists built on archives from Mount Athos and Ottoman-era records from Istanbul and Venice.
Hellenic studies encompasses subfields: classical philology engaging with manuscripts in Laurentian Library, Vatican Library, Bodleian Library; papyrology linked to Oxyrhynchus Papyri and Herculaneum Papyri; epigraphy associated with finds at Ephesus and inscriptions cataloged by the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and the Inscriptiones Graecae; numismatics examining coinages from Aegina, Syracuse (ancient), Alexander the Great issues, and Byzantine mint records; art history dealing with works attributed to Phidias, Praxiteles, and medieval icon painters; and modern Greek studies covering authors affiliated with University of Athens and cultural institutions like the National Library of Greece and the Benaki Museum.
Methodologies include textual criticism as developed in traditions tied to editors of Loeb Classical Library and critical editions in series like the Oxford Classical Texts; archaeological stratigraphy from excavations in Knossos and Troy; paleography using manuscripts from Mount Athos and the Vatican Apostolic Library; codicology informed by collections at Bibliothèque nationale de France; epigraphic recording modeled on practices by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens; and digital humanities projects such as the Perseus Digital Library, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Packard Humanities Institute, and GIS mapping of sites like Akrotiri (Santorini). Collaborative projects often involve institutions like the British School at Athens, German Archaeological Institute, Italian School of Archaeology at Athens, and the Institute for Advanced Study.
Major centers include the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the British School at Athens, the German Archaeological Institute Athens, the Italian Archaeological School of Athens, the École française d'Athènes, and university departments at Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, University College London, Oxford University, Cambridge University, University of Vienna, Heidelberg University, University of Rome La Sapienza, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Museums integral to training include the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, the British Museum, the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, and the Hermitage Museum.
Key contributors span antiquity to modernity: ancient authors Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus; Byzantine chroniclers Anna Komnene, Procopius; early modern and modern scholars and excavators Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Heinrich Schliemann, Sir Arthur Evans, Eduard Meyer, Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Gilbert Murray, R. G. Collingwood, Milman Parry, Albert Lord, Edith Hamilton, Martin Heidegger (philological engagements), Jean-Pierre Vernant, Moses Finley, Sir Ronald Syme, Michael Ventris, Emilio K. Ranieri, George Finlay, A. J. B. Wace, Bruno Snell, E. R. Dodds, Bernard Knox, Denys Page, Ioannis Svoronos, Angelos Chaniotis, Maria S. Margaronis, Richard Janko, Mary Beard, Paul Cartledge, Tim Whitmarsh, Peter Brown (historian).
Current debates involve provenance and repatriation disputes linking the Parthenon Marbles and collections at the British Museum and calls from the Acropolis Museum; interpretive controversies over reading of Linear B tablets tied to Michael Ventris and implications for Mycenaean society; discussions on colonial-era excavation practices exemplified by Heinrich Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans; methodological tensions between philology represented by editions in the Loeb Classical Library and theoretical approaches from scholars like Jean-Pierre Vernant and Martin Heidegger; digital scholarship ethics around projects such as the Perseus Digital Library and Thesaurus Linguae Graecae; and the role of Hellenic heritage in contemporary politics related to events like the Greek economic crisis and debates over cultural identity in diasporic communities including those tied to New York City and Melbourne.