ACG 150

ACG recently welcomed classical scholar and linguist Gonda Van Steen as the featured speaker of the 27th Kimon Friar Lecture on April 25 at the ACG Events Hall. A packed audience from the ACG and local community came to hear Van Steen’s presentation on “Child Adoption: Greek Myth, Literature and Reality.” Professor Van Steen has a prolific academic background and is the first woman to hold the position of Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature in the Center for Hellenic Studies and the Department of Classics at King’s College London, as well as being an Advisory Board Member of the ACG Institute for Hellenic Culture and the Liberal Arts (IHCLA).

Katerina Thomas, Dean of the Frances Rich School of Fine and Performing Arts, opened the event and gave the floor to Dr. Mary Cardaras, Director of the Demos Center, who introduced this year’s speaker. Dr. Cardaras, a Greek-born adoptee who fights for the restoration of Greek citizenship for some 4,000 Greek children, now adults, after the Cold War, fondly referred to Professor Van Steen as the “adoptee whisperer” and as a “treasure and gift to Greece and certainly to people she has helped. Were it not for her, this part of Greek history [lost children of Greece] would have remained obscured and misunderstood. She [Van Steen] helped me reset a compass that was confused about its direction and I have returned back to my roots.”

If you would like to read more about Professor Van Steen’s presentation, please click here.