Professors Napoleon Katsos and Ioanna Sitaridou. [Jet Photographic]
A group of Greek professors from Cambridge have launched an effort to restore the Chair of Modern Greek Language and Culture, a position eliminated in 2013 due to financial constraints.
Professors Napoleon Katsos and Ioanna Sitaridou explained their mission to Kathimerini.
“Unfortunately, modern Greek studies lack the glamour that ancient Greek had – and to some extent still has – as a subject,” Katsos says.
Trinity College, where they work, is home to a statue of Lord Byron, an example of the complex history between Greece and Britain.
“Byron was considered a ‘bad boy’ by the British establishment,” Sitaridou said of the English poet, a national hero in Greece over his role in the Greek Revolution. The loss of the chair was part of broader cutbacks in the humanities, as economic austerity hit UK institutions.
Their campaign aims to raise £2.5 million to reinstate the position.