Cyprus: contact phenomena and identity

Photo: G. Stavrinos, Flickr.com

Located at the easternmost corner of southern Europe, Cyprus has been for millennia a gateway between Europe and the Middle East; it thus provides a unique case-study for our understanding of how contact phenomena shape identities.

Modern Greek Studies hosts a one-day cross-disciplinary seminar with the aim of exploring Cyprus as an area of contact.

The seminar includes presentations from scholars working with Cypriot politics, archaeology, and language from the Hellenistic-Roman period until today.

The seminar is kindly supported by the Sophia Scopetéa Foundation.

Programme

Session 1 (History and archaeology)

14:00 - 14:30  Cypriot archaeology – or how to find your place in the world
                       Kristina Winther-Jacobsen (Associate Professor, Saxo Institute, University
                       of Copenhagen, director of the Danish Institute in Athens)

14:30 - 15:00  One State, Two Histories: Imperial Past and Communal Education in
                       Modern Cyprus, 1878-2015
                       Michalis N. Michael (Assistant Professor, Department of Turkish and Middle
                       Eastern Studies, University of Cyprus)

15:00 - 15:10  Break

15:10 - 15:40  The emergence of the Cyprus-issue in Turkey in the 1950s
                       Mogens Pelt (Associate Professor, Saxo Institute, University of
                       Copenhagen)          

15:40 - 16:10  Panel discussion

16:10 - 16:30  Coffee break

Session 2 (Language)

16:30 - 17:00  Language contact and linguistic identities in Medieval Cyprus
                       Theodore Markopoulos (Lecturer, Department of Philology, University of
                       Patras)

17:00 - 17:30  Language contact in perspective: The case of Cypriot Arabic
                       Marilena Karyolemou (Associate Professor, Department of Byzantine and
                       Modern Greek Studies, Univiversity of Cyprus)

17:30 - 18:00: Panel discussion

18:00 - 19:00  Reception hosted by the Embassy of Cyprus in Denmark

The seminar is open to the public.

Contact

Sandra Lucas, external lecturer at Modern Greek Studies, Department of Croos-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen.