Bravo Dimitri Nakassis!!! Book Presentation for our Friends

This week the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its so-called “Class of 2015” MacArthur Fellows (https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class/2015/). These highly sought “Genius Awards” are given each year to 24 individuals in North America (and occasionally in other countries) to pursue their innovative research and creative muses for five years, supported by a grant of US$625,000. This year Professor Dimitri Nakassis (Department of Classics, University of Toronto) is one of the deserving recipients (https://www.macfound.org/fellows/940/). He is the only awardee from a Canadian university this year.

Dimitri is well known at the Institute serving as the Co-Director with Professors Scott Gallimore (Wilfrid Laurier University) and Sarah James (University of Colorado at Boulder) of the Western Argolid Regional Project or WARP, one our independent survey permits from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. In 2014 he gave the Invited Lecture at our Annual Open Meeting on his ground-breaking research into the Linear B tablets found at the Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Messenia. The MacArthur Fellowship will allow him to expand the scope of this investigation to other archives. Further, it will support the project in which he is a lead researcher that is undertaking the high resolution digitalization of all of the known Linear B tablets.

On behalf of the Institute and its members I extend enthusiastic congratulations to Dimitri on this prestigious award! His achievement makes us proud. We look forward to his lecture in the Institute’s Winter/Spring Lecture Program when he will be in Greece as part of his current sabbatical leave.

Book Presentation and Reading

Our first event of the fall for the Athens Association of Friends of the Institute is coming this Wednesday, October 7^th at 7:30 PM in our Library. It will take the form of a book presentation and selected readings from the book.

Taking fifteen years to write, Shadow of the Lion: Blood on the Moon is Volume One of an epic story set in the aftermath of the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon in 323 BC and the bloody Wars of Succession. This is W. Ruth Kozak’s debut literary novel which chronicles the journey westward of the newly appointed joint-kings, Alexander’s half-brother Philip Arridaios and his infant son, Iskander (Alexander IV).

W. Ruth Kozak is a Canadian travel journalist with a strong interest in history and archaeology. A frequent traveler, Ruth lived for several years in Greece and instructs classes in travel journalism and creative writing for the Vancouver School Board in British Columbia.

The novel was extensively researched in Greece, with the support of Classical scholars, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Society of Macedonian Studies (Thessaloniki), and the Finnish and Norwegian Institutes in Athens. Further research was undertaken in the Gennadius Library and at the British Library in London.

We look forward to seeing you all again on Wednesday after the long summer hiatus. You’ll have a chance to meet and welcome Sarah and Vicki our new Fellow and new undergraduate intern!

Cordially,
David Rupp
Director