Dutch Society for Modern Greek Studies - NGNS

05/03/2026

Great institute for Dutch, Greek and English lessons, online and in-company.

26/02/2026

Join us tomorrow in Amsterdam for the talk “Breathing the Industrial City: Work, Memory, and Everyday Life in Elefsina (Western Attika, Greece)” by Dr Regina Mantanika (Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Research Fellow, University of Amsterdam).
🗓 Date & Time: Friday 27 February 2026, 15:30 CET
📍 Location: P.C. Hoofthuis (Spuistraat 134, Amsterdam), Room PCH 104 (no registration required)
Supported by the Dutch Society for Modern Greek Studies - NGNS, the Modern Greek Studies dept and the Humanities Faculty of the University of Amsterdam.
Dr Mantanika’s lecture will explore the social and cultural dynamics of the industrial transformation and subsequent de-industrialization in the Greek town of Elefsina — moving beyond common narratives to show how work, memory, and everyday life shape and reflect broader urban and industrial experiences. For more info, see

Speaker: Dr. Regina Mantanika, Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Research Fellow, University of Amsterdam Date: 27 February 2026 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: P.C. Hoofthuis (Spuistraat 134, Amsterdam), room 1.04. Language: English Supported by: The Humanities Faculty, the department of Modern Greek Langua...

18/12/2025

8th Call for Applications Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Research Fellowships in Modern Greek Studies
📍 University of Amsterdam
The new call for applications is now out!
For the 2026–2027 academic year, one fellowship will be awarded to an early-career scholar (PhD 2020 and later) for a period of five months.
Deadline: 2 March 2026
Established in 2019 and sponsored by the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation—which also supports the Marilena Laskaridis Chair of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Amsterdam, founded by the NGNS—these annual fellowships offer researchers the opportunity to spend a semester at the University of Amsterdam and develop their research within a vibrant academic community.
🔗 For further details, application guidelines, and information on present and past fellows, please visit:

The Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Fellowships are sponsored by the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, which is also the main sponsor of the Marilena Laskaridis Chair of Modern Greek Studies at the UvA, held by Prof. Maria Boletsi. The fellowships are offered annually on a competitive basis and by appl...

23/11/2025

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT, Friday Novermber 28:
Please join us for an upcoming event at the academic-cultural podium SPUI25 of the University of Amsterdam this coming Friday, November 28 at 17:00 CET:

Fragments, Clues, and Surprises in Literary Biographies: Writing Cavafy’s Life

The event takes as its starting point the newly published biography of C. P. Cavafy, titled 'Alexandrian Sphinx', by Gregory Jusdanis and Peter Jeffreys, in order to explore the art and challenges of writing literary lives.
Cavafy (1863–1933), a diasporic Greek poet based in Alexandria, Egypt, has inspired generations of readers around the world. The publication of this new biography is a major literary event that has attracted wide and enthusiastic reviews in the press, from 'The Wall Street Journal' to 'The Guardian.'

The main speaker is Gregory Jusdanis, co-author of 'Alexandrian Sphinx', who will read selected passages from the biography along with poems by Cavafy.
The reading will be followed by a discussion with Prof. Jusdanis and Dutch literary biographer Koen Hilberdink on the craft of literary biography and process of reconstructing a writer’s life.

Full details & registration form:
https://www.spui25.nl/programma/fragments-clues-and-surprises-in-literary-biographies-writing-cavafys-life

For those unable to attend in person, a LIVESTREAM option is also available via the same link.

The event is co-sponsored by the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam, the Dutch Society for Modern Greek Studies (NGNS) and the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL).

Please feel free to share widely with anyone who may be interested.

​Following the release of a new biography of the Greek diasporic q***r poet Constantine Cavafy, author Gregory Jusdanis will read from the book alongside selections of Cavafy’s poetry. He will then engage in conversation with Dutch literary biographer Koen Hilberdink on the thrills and challenge...

17/10/2025

*UPCOMING TALK*
Everyone is welcome at the lecture by Dr. Joyce Goggin on October 31, 2025, 15:30 in P.C.Hoofthuis 1.05 (Spuistraat 134) on
"Sponge Fishing, Cultural Heritage, and the Island of Kalymnos"

The lecture is part of the NGNS lecture series in Modern Greek culture.
Summary:
In this talk, I discuss Aegean sponge fishing and the island of Kalymnos in the 19th and 20th centuries, along with the culture practices it gave rise to, and the enormous costs it exacted in terms of animal life and environmental damage. While sponging was the bedrock of island economies throughout the Aegean and elsewhere around the Mediterranean, it became a mono-industry on Kalymnos where it involved the entire population, beginning in the 1830s. The lives of Kalymnian ship captains, investors, divers, and the women of Kalymnos were directly impacted by the sponge trade, which informed virtually every aspect of daily life on the island, from the long tradition of diving associated with Kalymnos, to domestic economies based on this highly dangerous, often fatal occupation, which in turn gave rise to cycles of permanent debt. At the same time, Kalymnian sponging funded schools and public institutions on the island and inspired cultural production, from the “traditional” dance of the paralyzed sponge diver to novels, short stories, poetry and songs about the tragic lives of divers and the captains who exploited them.

Speaker:
Joyce Goggin is a senior lecturer (UHD) at the UvA. She has published several edited books and numerous articles on a wide range of topics including “Sponging and the Island of Kalymnos: Rural, Industrial, Global”, in Rural Imaginations for a Globalized World (Brill 2025). She is the editor of Aegean Sponge Fishing and the Island of Kalymnos: An Ethnography and Industrial History (Brill 2024), and her most recent work on popular culture will be published in Taylor Swift and Fandom: Aesthetics, Addiction, Im(media)cy, Performance, Economy, edited with Maryn Wilkinson, and forthcoming with Palgrave in 2026. Goggin’s work on Edith Wharton and The House of Mirth will also be published in 2026 with Boydell and Brewer, in Women, Money, and Markets, a collection of essays of which she is also co-editor.