When I was an undergraduate learning ancient Greek at Oberlin College, modern Greek programs appeared out of nowhere at Ohio State and Harvard universities. Greek was my grandmother tongue, and it surprised me that the Greek I spoke at home was something people actually studied.
I grew up in Michigan and Ohio, the granddaughter of refugees from the shores of the Hellespont in the Ottoman Empire and immigrant laborers from Cephalonia, Greece, who cultivated figs, grapes, and quince in their magical Ohio garden. Besides farmers, there were many teachers going as far back as I can see: my great-grandfather a high school principle, great-aunts on two sides and my mother grade school teachers, down to my brother, husband, and niece, daughter…
I graduated from Oberlin with a B.A. in studio art and religious studies. After a happy two-year immersion at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, I entered graduate studies at the Ohio State University and received an M.A. in Greek and Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program in comparative studies. I worked as an adjunct professor and lecturer from 1992 until 2007, when I was granted tenure at the University of Michigan.
I have taught Greek language, literature, and culture to innumerable students, who have gone on to do marvelous things.
In my research, I consider how the past is interwoven in the fabric of Greek society, especially how Greek receptions of antiquity affirm or disrupt the logic of Western classicism. My first book, Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Homeland (1995, Greek translation 1998), studying literary inscriptions of antiquity on the Greek landscape, was listed as an outstanding academic book of 1996-1997 by Choice magazine. Greece: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (1997) is an anthology of 24 stories by Greek writers introducing readers to the landscapes of Greece through their perspectives. “What these Ithakas mean…”: Readings in Cavafy (2002), co-edited with Lauren E. Talalay and Keith Taylor, was a TLS “Book of the Year” for 2002. Culture and Customs of Greece (2009) presents an overview of contemporary Greece for a general readership. I curated two exhibits: “Women’s Fabric Arts in Greek America” in Columbus, Ohio (1995) and “Cavafy’s World” in the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (2002, with Laurie Talalay). I have been supported in my research by a NEH fellowship for independent scholars in 1995 and was a Michigan University Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities in 2011–2012.
Publication of my book, Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins (2019), followed years of research on one of the strangest, most deeply influential visitors to Greece of the twentieth century. The book has appeared now in Greek translation under the marvelous title, Εύα Πάλμερ-Σικελιανού: Υφαίνοντας τον μύθο μιας ζωής (2022, translated by Katerina Schina). I am currently working on a collection of Eva Palmer’s youthful love letters.
Active in the Modern Greek Studies Association from my graduate student days, I was the humanities editor of its flagship Journal for Modern Greek Studies from 2014 to 2019.
I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan with my husband, Vassilis Lambropoulos, and dog Zeno, who has kept us sane through the pandemic. In a safe midsize town, life’s rhythms are good, with fall, winter, and spring through the longest days of early summer in Ann Arbor, then the heart of summer in our flat in Athens, and late summer in Michigan again. The return brings precious time with our daughter Daphne and her husband Mike, and sometimes a good enough quince harvest from the 90-year-old tree in our backyard to make preserve using my grandmother’s recipe. When teaching starts up again, Zeno is eager to help with grading!