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Dr. Tom Papademetriou is the Constantine and Georgeian Georgiou Endowed Professor of Greek History, and Executive Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies at ������Ƶ. A graduate of both Hellenic College (BA, 1988) and Holy Cross School of Theology (M. Divinity, 1992), Dr. Papademetriou received his Ph.D. in 2001 from Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies in Ottoman History. He was awarded research fellowships by the Social Science Research Council and the American Research Institute in Turkey to conduct research in the Ottoman Archives and the Archives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, Turkey. His research focuses on the history of non-Muslims under Ottoman rule, and he is currently directing an international collaborative project called the Anatolian Churches Project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 1999 to 2000, he was in residence as a Junior Fellow at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Research Center and Library, Washington, DC and from 2000 to 2001 served as Lecturer at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. As a member of the Historical Studies faculty at ������Ƶ University since 2001, he is actively engaged in building a strong Hellenic Studies program in which he teaches courses on the history of the Tourkokratia, Modern Greece, the Balkans, and the Middle East. He lives in Linwood, NJ with his wife Dorrie, and two sons, George and Romanos.

Dr.Katherine Panagakos came to Classics by a long and winding road. After receiving her B.S. in Environmental Policy, Institutions, and Behavior from Cook College, Rutgers University, Katherine changed career paths and returned to Rutgers to study Medieval History. During her studies, however, she was required to take Ancient Greek and Latin…and she never looked back. Can someone really enjoy grammar and syntax that much? YES!!! Katherine earned her M.A. in Classics from Tulane University (1996) and her Ph.D. in Greek and Latin from The Ohio State University (2004). During her graduate work, Katherine was a student at The American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA, summer 1995) and was a field walker and camp manager at the Eastern Korinthia Archaeogical Survey (EKAS, summer 2000) and hopes to do more summer archaeological work soon. Before completing her dissertation, Katherine accepted a full-time teaching post and spent three years in a rotating position at schools in the Associated Colleges of the South (Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX; Furman University in Greenville, SC; and Rhodes College in Memphis, TN). A native of NY/NJ, Katherine never imagined she would be find a teaching position so close to where she grew up…but she did. Katherine arrived at ������Ƶ in January, 2008, and teaches primarily Latin and Classics-related courses (such as Classical Mythology and Greco-Roman Film and Text) and serves as the advisor for the Classics Honor Society (Eta Sigma Phi) and co-advisor of the Hellenic Heritage Society. Regardless of whether she is in Latin class or Mythology, Katherine’s goal is to bridge the gap between the ancient and modern world and to bring the Greco-Roman world to life. Her research focuses on the role of fictional pirates, robbers, and other brigands in the ancient Greek and Roman novels, a topic that really is as fun and exciting as it sounds. In the coming years, she hopes to lead student trips to Greece and Italy as she has done in the past. “I love seeing my students actively learning, whether in the classroom or at an ancient site. Nothing can compare to seeing the excitement and understanding on their faces as they grasp a difficult grammatical concept or catch their first glimpse of the Acropolis.”

 Dr. Lucio Privitello is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Coordinator of the Philosophy and Religion Program (fall 2010 through spring 2014), Tsantes Endowed professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy, past President of the Classical Humanities Society of South Jersey (CHSSJ), (from fall 2010 to spring 2012), past Zeta Chapter faculty Advisor for the Philosophical Honors Society Phi Sigma Tau at ������Ƶ, (2006-2010) and Fellow of the ICHS and The Examined Life, Lucio Angelo Privitello holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Villanova University (2003), an M.A. in Philosophy from Villanova (2001), an M.A. in Philosophy from Temple University (1986), and a B.F.A. in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design (1981). In Italy he earned a Diploma Superiore in Ceramics and Design from the Art Institute of Grammichele, Sicily (1977), and was an apprentice in painting and sculpture for five years with Maestro Giuseppe Benassi in Parma, Italy.

It has always been a dream to share my cultural background to its fullest. In 1972, while living and studying in Sicily, I was introduced to my first text in the history of philosophy. The text was Plato’s Republic, Book VII and I was sitting with my uncle, Professor Gino Coppoletta, on the slopes of the volcano Etna. Through him my introduction to Plato, Empedocles, and the native Sophist Gorgias came alive amidst the backdrop of a mountain of lava where against so many odds plush vegetation breaks through and lives are lived against the shoulders of destructive and creative power. What an ideal classroom those slopes proved to be. It is the apprenticeship to such forces that I seek to create and share with my classes.  I am convinced, as George Santayana put it, that “half of our standards come from our first masters, and the other half from our first loves”. I have been extremely lucky in both these departments, and work my standards because of their lasting lessons in an artistic-philosophical form of life. I have lectured and facilitated mini-seminars for The Examined Life series, entitled “Education and the Art of Teaching: The Apprenticeship in Ideals in Plato’s Socrates”, along with a presentation on Plato’s use of fables. I have also presented a lecture for the Classical Humanities Society of South Jersey, and spoke on Hesiod’s Theogony, entitled “In Union with Love: A Mytho-genealogy of Eros in Hesiod’s Theogony”. On March 26, 2011, I present a CHSSJ lecture entitled: “The Presence and Structure of the Classics in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time”. These venues are extremely productive due to the roots and fruits of having a community of friends committed to Hellenic Studies, and scholarship here at ������Ƶ. I am happy to continue my relation with the CHSSJ, and continue to contribute as a faculty member and fellow of The Pappas Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies with ICHS Director Prof. Papademetriou, and ICHS colleagues, where I remain interested in proposing, organizing, and guiding a study trip to Sicily. My publications range from articles in classical American philosophy (Chauncey Wright), French philosophy and literature (Georges Bataille), Italian Cinema, Sicilian Literature, and French philosophy (Deleuze/Visconti/Lampedusa), along with International and National Conference presentations in Ancient Greek Philosophy, Pedagogy, Aesthetics, and Humor Studies, and classical American philosophy. Within the Philosophy and Religion Program I teach Ancient Greek Philosophy, History of Modern Western Philosophy, Introduction to Philosophy, and Senior Seminars, one entitled “Volumes and Edges in Contemporary Philosophy”, and most recently, “Parmenides: Philosophy and/as Law”. I have run, and continue to run Independent Studies (Hegel, Hobbes, Sade/Masoch, Creativity and Creations, Vico/Dilthey/Bourdieu and the Social Sciences, and Phenomenology and the Arts), as well as a specialty course on Nietzsche, and a course proposed on Leibniz. My General Arts and Humanities courses (GAH) are “The Ways of Love”, “Humor’s Logic and Laughter’s Wisdom”, “In the Animal’s Image”, and “Philosophies of Life and Death: : True Blood and Philosophy”. A few recent lectures and publications have been: “The Voluptuous Immobility of Sicilian Temporality: Il Gattopardo.” Lecture presentation for the Romance Language Department, University of Pennsylvania, and the Italian Consulate General (2010), “Teaching Marcuse: A Critical Pedagogy of Aesthetic Dimensions.” presented at the Marcuse conference, University of Pennsylvania (2012), the publication of “Josiah Royce and the Problems of Philosophical Pedagogy, (Part 2)” The Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, Spring, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp.300-320 (2011), and “Josiah Royce and the Problems of Philosophical Pedagogy, (Part 1)” The Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, Winter, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp.111-142 (2010). In 2011, and from the experience of teaching my GAH classes “Philosophies of Life and Death: True Blood and Philosophy”, I asked each student to focus on one paper that was perfected into a book chapter on the issues of life, death, immortality, love, and mythology and that used scholarly texts to unfold issues in the HBO series True Blood, and published the volume: Blood Type: Writ(h)ing In & On True Blood, Vol. 1. (Volume editor), (Margate, NJ: Comteq Publishing). Due to this publication we were in a feature article in Press of Atlantic City, July 30, 2011, Section B, pp. B1, B3. All sales went into a ������Ƶ Scholarship Fund. There will be a second, and final volume of Blood Type: Writ(h)ing In & On True Blood, published in 2014.