SSG Theology Project Narrative

Medieval Greek Program at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens

I am applying retroactively to be reimbursed for part of the travel expenses associated with my taking part in the Medieval Greek Program at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens this past summer of 2015.

This Medieval Greek Program is extremely competitive and is widely recognized as both the most rigorous and most prestigious program in Medieval Greek in the world. The coursework takes place over one month in the summer and includes three major components: the reading of printed Medieval Greek texts at diverse levels of linguistic and stylistic difficulty, training in paleography (to read ancient manuscripts, papyruses, and inscriptions), and one-on-one tutorials; these classroom activities are generously complemented by archeological excursions both around Athens and various parts of Greece (Sparta, Mystra, Thessaloniki, Corinth, Meteora, Hosios Loukas, etc.). This course is taught by Eustratios Papaioannou (Brown University) and Alexandros Alexakis (University of Ioannina), two of the world’s foremost scholars in Medieval Greek. I was able to spend one month under the private tutelage of Professor Alexakis, studying in depth the Greek of my PhD dissertation figure, Maximos the Confessor, whose Greek style and conceptual content is also widely recognized as the most difficult exemplar of Medieval Greek available.

This summer program offers various opportunities to promote one’s career. First, it increases one’s fluency in the language, which is of fundamental importance when dealing with sources that may not exist in translation—or even if they do, they enable one to engage the text more responsible by developing sound knowledge of the original. Second, it has in the past functioned as a leap-board for more prestigious awards and fellowships. For example, my colleague, who took part in this program, was able to use his connections and skills acquired during this program to win a summer research fellowship at the Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Studies Research Center of Harvard University and, thereafter, a Fulbright-Mach scholarship to conduct further research at the Institute for Byzantine Studies in Vienna. Third, it prepares one to conduct highly sophisticated research with manuscripts in order to create what is known as a “critical edition,” which includes the comparison of the relevant existing manuscripts in order to determine as closely as possible what the original text might have been.