Pharos Lecture: January 28, 2008

Is Arcadia Burning?
Myths and Realities


Professor John Gaitanakis








This talk will address both the importance of the myth of Arcadia for the development of western culture and the destruction of Arcadia by fire in the summer of 2007.


John Gaitanakis , UBC Professor Emeritus, taught architectural design at UBC for nearly thirty years, emphasizing the importance of environmental factors in designing housing complexes in urbanized areas with a special emphasis on reclaiming the city from the private automobile.


In the summer of 2007 he witnessed the unfolding of the tragic events in Greece and visited Arcadia shortly after the fires. In his talk he will remind us of the importance of Arcadia’s Myths for the West, and present the various scenario that were put forth to account for the destruction of a large part of continental Greece, including Arcadia.


Monday 28 January 2008
Upper Hall, Hellenic Community Centre
4500 Arbutus Street, Vancouver
Time: 8:00 pm

Pharos Lecture: November 26, 2007

Socratic Religion

Professor Mark McPherran
SFU Department of Philosophy





Socrates is acknowledged to be the founder of ethics as a disciplinary area of Western Philosophy (and the chief exponent of the notorious Socratic Method). But it is also common for modern readers -- in view of Socrates’ trial and death on a charge of impiety -- to underplay the idea that he was a religious as well as a rational thinker. Our texts, however, indicate that Socrates reshaped and did not reject the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of Philosophy. The direct legacy of that project is the rational theology of Plato, the Stoics, Christianity, and Islam. This talk offers a sketch of religion of Socrates and its influences.


Mark McPherran, Chair of the SFU Dept. of Philosophy, specializes in Ancient Greek Philosophy, Ancient Greek Religion, Philosophy of Religion, and the History of Ethics and is the author of The Religion of Socrates (Pennsylvania State University Press; 1996)


Monday 26 November 2007
Upper Hall, Hellenic Community Centre
4500 Arbutus Street, Vancouver
Time: 8:00 pm

Hellenic Canadian Congress of BC

Pharos is a member of The Hellenic Canadian Congress of BC. Their website http://www.neapolis.com/bccongress/ has many links of interest to philhellenes.

Pharos Lecture: October 29, 2007

HECUBA: One Woman’s Argument
 Professor George McWhirterUBC Department of Creative Writing

Troy is lost, Hecuba’s husband—the King of Troy—is dead, the Greek army is set to sail home and she, into slavery.

George McWhirter sees Euripides’ play Hecuba as one woman's argument with the army of destiny, its generals, and one of its dastards. Capturing this argument (and another, with her daughter, not to predecease her) and how the fierce melody of Hecuba’s lament propels the acute logic of her case is McWhirter’s subject.

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More than two millennia have passed since Euripides’ Hecuba was first performed in the open air on a Greek hillside. What has changed since? Not war. Not vengeance. Not love. And not the ability of this great play to move you.

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Vancouver’s Blackbird Theatre will present an innovative, new production of Euripide’s Hecuba, adapted by George McWhirter and directed by John Wright, at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Dec 28, 2007 – Jan 12, 2008. For details:

http://www.blackbirdtheatre.ca/upcoming.htm

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Monday 29 October 2007
Upper Hall. The Hellenic Community Centre
4500 Arbutus Street, Vancouver

Time: 8:00 pm

Pharos Lectures 2006/07

October 2006: Ancient Greek Mechanics and Philosophers, Sylvia Berryman, UBC Department of Philosophy
November 2006: Cancelled (snow storm)
January 2007: Luminous Encounters: On the Island of Tinos, Ron Walkey, Architect, UBC Professor Emeritus
February 2007: Between Greece, Rome and Jerusalem, the Creative Meanderings of Byzantine Culture, Professor Dimitrios Krallis, Hellenic Studies, Simon Fraser University
March 2007: Tony Harrison and Greek Drama: Confounding the Categories of High and Low, Hallie Rebecca Marshall, UBC Theatre Department
April 2007: The Art of the Bouzouki, George Yioldassis, Bouzouki, with Selinounda and Friends