Liberty's Odyssey: American Models of Liberty in Greek Enlightenment and Revolution with Paschalis M. Kitromilides

Live stream the talk at 6:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 9, 2024. 

On Thursday, May 9, The American Philosophical Society and Stockton University's Dean C. And Zoë Pappas Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies will host the Rev. Dr. Demetrios J. Constantelos Memorial Lecture. 

At this lecture, Dr. Paschalis M. Kitromilides will discuss the reception of American ideas of liberty and constitutional government in the literature of the Greek Enlightenment, especially during its climax in the first two decades of the 19th century, and in the culture and political thought of the Greek Revolution in the 1820s. Special attention will be devoted to the commentaries on the American practice of liberty in the writings of Adamantios Korais and to the symbolic significance of the emblematic presence of Benjamin Franklin in Greek revolutionary culture.

Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Ph.D. Harvard University, has served Greek higher education at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens from 1980 to 2016. Originally a lecturer on the history of political thought in the Law School, he became Associate Professor (1983) and Professor (1987) of Political Science in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the Faculty of Law, Economics and Political Science. He has been director of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies since 1980 and was Director of the Institute of Neohellenic Research / National Hellenic Research Foundation (2000-2011). He was a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Brandeis Universities, USA, Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge and at the University of Oxford, Directeur d’Études invité, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow, European University Institute, Florence and Visiting Professor, Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Villa I Tatti, Florence. He is a life member of the academic council of the Greek Parliament since 2004 and an external member of the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts since 2020.

He is the author or editor of over fifty books and over two hundred and eighty articles and book reviews in academic journals and collective volumes in Greek and English. Besides English and Greek, his books have appeared in French, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Turkish. He has been honored with the Excellence in University Teaching award in memory of Xanthopoulos-Pnevmatikos (2016), the Award of Excellence in Historical and Social Sciences of the Academy of Athens (2018), the first Lifetime Achievement Award, European Society for the History of Political Thought (2018). He has received the decorations Chevalier des Palmes Académiques, French Republic (2003) and Commander of the Order of Honor, Hellenic Republic (2015).

Rev. Dr. Demetrios J. Constantelos was Distinguished Research Scholar in Residence and the Charles Cooper Townsend Sr. Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies, Emeritus, at Stockton University in Galloway, NJ. Dr. Constantelos was born in Spilia, Messenia, Greece. Soon after his graduation from the high school in Kyparissia, Greece, he received a scholarship to study at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School (BA.Th.) in Massachusetts and continued his education at Princeton Theological Seminary in the field of the New Testament and the Hellenistic Age (Th.M.), and Rutgers University in Byzantine History and Civilization (M.A., Ph.D.). He also was an ordained Greek Orthodox priest and founded several parishes in South Jersey. He taught at Stockton University from 1971 to 1996, was an internationally renowned scholar and is the founder of Hellenic Studies at Stockton. He is the author of 15 books and hundreds of papers. Professor Constantelos passed away on January 12, 2017.