From 6 to 11 September, more than 120 presenters, including academics, journalists, artists, researchers and community leaders from Greece, Australia, the United States and beyond, will take part in the 12th International Summer University “Greek Language, Culture and Media” Conference at the University of NSW in Sydney.
“The heart of Greece beats in the diaspora”
It will be a unique program of language, culture, education and the exchange of ideas under the event’s guiding theme, “The Greek Language in Australia: From Memory to the Future”.
At a press conference earlier this week, a message from the conference’s founder and academic director, Professor Nikoletta Tsitsanoudi-Mallidi of the University of Ioannina, was read out by AHEPA Sydney and NSW President Nia Gitsas, who is also a member of the organising committee.
“The heart of Greece beats in the diaspora,” Tsitsanoudi-Mallidi’s message read, underlying a conviction that Greek language and culture abroad are not a diminished echo of the homeland but a living, generative part of it.
Indicative themes: The Greek language, from memory to the future
The 12th International Summer University seeks to open a substantive dialogue on the presence of the Greek language in Australia, highlighting both its historical course and the new challenges created by contemporary education, digital technology, the rise of artificial intelligence, the media, and the changing needs of Greek-speaking communities.
The proceedings will explore the past, present and future of Greek in Australia, including innovative approaches to teaching, digital learning, the Greek language diaspora media, and partnerships among universities, communities and institutions to strengthen Greek-language education.
As Ms Gitsas declared:
It is truly inspiring to see the Greek-Australian community coming together for a special cause, united by a shared commitment to education, culture, knowledge, and the strengthening of the bonds between Greece and Australia
Presidential greetings
The President of the Hellenic Republic, Constantine An. Tassoulas, has sent his greetings, welcoming the event in Sydney that highlights the Greek language as a living foundation of identity, memory and culture”. He emphasised the diaspora’s vital role in preserving Greek, the importance of cooperation among educational and cultural institutions, and the opportunities offered by technology and artificial intelligence.
In concluding that the Greek language can be passed confidently to future generations, not only as a heritage of the past, but as a creative language of the future, the Greek Persident also echoed the sentiments of his predecessor, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, who in his greetings has declared that the “Hellenism of Australia inspires us through its ethos and its determination”.
Defending Multiculturalism and Multilingualism
This ground-breaking conference will also be held in the background of a renewed assault on multiculturalism in this country
Undeterred, Dr Vasilis Adrahtas stated at the press conference:
“We have all this discussion now about whether we are a multicultural or a monocultural society, whether we should speak other languages or just English. This discourse and rhetoric, which comes from the One Nation political party, is, if anything, a challenge to the way we have conceived ourselves for decades.”
He urged that it is not just about the emotionality of the Greeks and how they love their language and their culture; what the conference is aiming to chieve for the Greek language should be emulated for every community’s ethnic language in the country.
From memory to enterprise
The event will also feature a rich cultural program and for the first time the conference organisers have deliberately woven in business and economic content alongside language and culture.
On the conference’s final day, Friday 11 September, a dedicated roundtable at the Rex Vowels Theatre will examine the Australia–European Union Free Trade Agreement and Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research and innovation funding program, in a session convened by Konstantinos Sgouras, co-founder of Unity in Philia.
“The idea is very simple,” he said. “The Greek language remains strong when people have reasons to continue using it. Traditionally in Australia, Greek is connected with family, with cultural identity and heritage. But in the modern era, it can also be connected to business, professional networks, innovation, technology and international opportunities.”
The classroom at the centre
Artemis Theodoris, Secretary of the Foundation for Hellenic Studies at UNSW, spoke of what she and other educators describe as language shift – the gradual loss of a family language as older generations increasingly default to English, alongside declining enrolments and a shortage of qualified teachers in community language schools.
To counter this, it is necessary to build continuous learning pathways from early education through to tertiary study. Individual classroom teachers need ongoing professional development, up-to-date resources and reliable digital infrastructure, and closer cooperation between mainstream schools, community language schools, universities, cultural organisations, the media and families.
Ms Theodoris added:
“Multilingual education should not rely mainly on community goodwill, volunteer teachers, or lessons delivered outside regular hours. Australia needs a coordinated, adequately funded, long-term national approach that makes multilingualism part of mainstream education, rather than treating it as an optional extra.”
Heritage languages like Greek, she argued, should not be preserved simply as relics of migration but taught and valued as living Australian languages that contribute to identity, literacy and the country’s broader intellectual future.
Critical discourse analysis and the rise of neologisms and distinctive vocabulary
Any conference on the Greek language is not just confined to learning to speak and write in Greek. For this writer, semantics and the use of words are also fundamental to an understanding of language,
Critical discourse analysis explores how language is reshaped and used to influence public understanding – especially in times of crisis – through recurring metaphors, neologisms, ideological frames and newly emerging ‘layers of language.
In “Greek Media Discourse from the Restoration of Democracy to the Memoranda: Transformations and Symbolism”, Professor Nikoletta Tsitsanoudis-Mallidis traces Greek media discourse from the 1974 restoration of democracy to Greece’s financial crisis. A “memorandum language” quickly emerged, borrowing from medical/therapeutic vocabulary. The Greek economy and the state were “diagnosed,” “treated,” or “medicated” as Greek debt was likened to an illness and a bankrupt Greece was administering the supposed “medicine” in the form of austerity measures.
Similarly, a militaristic/wartime vocabulary has been mapped onto the refugee crisis in Greek public discourse – describing migration flows using fear-based language (φοβογλώσσα) of invasion, defence and conflict. The Greek term λαθρομετανάστης (meaning “illegal/clandestine migrant”) is now regularly applied in framing asylum seekers and refugees as national security threats and military-style invaders.
Every major social crisis creates its own distinctive vocabulary and discursive mechanisms, as also occurred with the language of the pandemic, and this now extends to more current debates about political power, genocide and femicide or gender-based violence (Γυναικοκτονία). Femicide is sadly very topical in both Greece and Australia, highlighting the important role of media reporting and the impact of political leanings on how media choose to portray specific cases.
It also considers the future of Greek in the diaspora and digital age, asking whether education, media, technology and artificial intelligence will strengthen the language or accelerate its erosion.
Greek Language and Artificial Intelligence, or Illiteracy
An emerging theme is the promise or threat posed by Artificial Intelligence. The conference will eplore this new frontier and whether AI will lead towards the dissemination of Greek, or towards algorithmic confinement
Greek language and culture
It is a truism that language is experienced above all through cultural activities. In the case of the 12th International Summer University proceedigs, the cultural program is promising, coiciding as it does with celebrations in Sydney of three other landmark centenaries: the Greek Consulate-General in Sydney, the Hellenic Club and the Greek Herald.
The Power of Greek Cartoonists
There will be an exhibition celebrating the influential legacy of Greek cartooning and its vital contribution to public discourse.On Sunday 6 September, an exhibition of political cartoons by three of Greece’s most acclaimed cartoonists, Ilias Makris, Andreas Petroulakis and Stathis Stavropoulos (better known as Stathis), will open at the Greek Orthodox Community of NSW in Lakemba with some sixty works, twenty from each artist, ranging across Greek, American and religious-political satire, and running for the length of the conference.
The caroonists will also take part in a round-table discussion during the conference where they will trace the evolution of cartooning in the Greek press and explore the enduring connections between art and politics, humour and criticism, and the Greek language as a vehicle for commentary and cultural expression.
The Artistic Language of the Greek Spirit
The following evening, an art exhibition titled “The Greek Spirit,” curated by Dr Adrahtas and featuring more than twenty works from artists including Helena Manatiadis, Petros Hovaguimian, Angela Kiki Konstantinopoulou and Kristina Tseo, will be unveiled, tracing what Adrahtas called “the diachronicity of the Hellenic spirit from antiquity to modernity” and showing that in every period Hellenism changes but, but at the same time and in perhaps an indescribable way, it remains the same.
Hail Arcadia
A documentary screening to be introduced by Nia Gitsas and presented by Virginia follows mid-week at the Rex Vowels Auditorium.
“Hail Arcadia” Αρκαδία Χαίρε is a lyrical, meditative Greek documentary shot in 2015 – before the Greek crisis – by the acclaimed director Filippos Koutsaftis that beautifully weaves together the past and present of the myth-laden province of Arcadia.
The 90 minute film explores a place that follows the myth of a mysterious inscription, “Et in Arcadia ego”, a Latin phrase that essentially translates to “I too was in Arcadia,” traditionally interpreted as a reminder that hardship and ultimately death are present even in an idyllic utopia.
Shot over the course of a decade, the film serves as a hauntingly beautiful but melancholic salute to a disappearing traditional way of life., Through fragmented imagery, breathtaking landscapes and evocative narration, Koutsaftis explores universal questions of life, memory and the enduring human spirit.
The cultural program closes on Thursday 10 September with “A Night of Traditional Hellenic Music and Dance,” bringing together traditional dance groups of the diaspora representing Epirus, the Ionian islands, the Peloponnese, Pontos, Macedonia, Crete and Kalymnos.
Diaspora Media and the Greek Language
The Sydney conference will also see the formal presentation of the volume from the 2025 Boston gathering on the theme of the Hellenic Disapora Media, continuing a pattern in which each Summer University’s academic output is published and launched at the following year’s edition.
The conference is free for all to attend. So come along to experience the rich Greek language in dialogue, education and culture.
For one week, we will certainly all be Greeks.
Acknowledgments
The International Summer University continues to building bridges between Greece, the Greek diaspora, universities, education, culture and contemporary communications media.
The work of the Laboratory for the Study of Social Issues, Media and Education of the Department of Early Childhood Education, School of Education, University of Ioannina, in collaboration with the Greek Studies Program at the University of New South Wales and Unity in Philia, is gratefully acknowledged, togetherw ith thr following participants:
– Foundation for Hellenic Studies UNSW
– AHEPA Sydney & NSW
– International Society of Friends of Nikos Kazantzakis, Sydney Branch
– Numerous Greek diaspora organisations and institutions
– Maliotis Cultural Center of Hellenic Holy Cross
– Greek Applied Linguistics Association (GALA)
– Southern California Library
– The University of Chicago, Center for Hellenic Studies
– Study in Greece
– Australian Hellenic Educators Association
– The Hellenic Club Sydney
The event is also supported by the following media sponsors: ERT, ERT2, ERT3, ERT WORLD, First Programme 105.8, Voice of Greece and the Hellenic Parliament Channel. The Australian media sponsors are The Greek Herald, Neos Kosmos, 2MM Radio Sydney, Darwin, Wollongong, the SBS Greek Program and Greek City Times.
George Vardas is the Arts and Culture Editor. On Tuesday 8 September he will be part of a roundtable discussion on the Greek media of the diaspora at the conference
