From vrasidas.karalis at sydney.edu.au Mon Aug 22 10:18:52 2016 From: vrasidas.karalis at sydney.edu.au (Vrasidas Karalis) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 00:18:52 +0000 Subject: [Moderngreek-l] LECTURE TONIGHT AT SYNDEY UNIVERSITY BY MS NADIA MURAD Message-ID: <6EAF0960E3F0804D94C4004370716338BF03E5E3@ex-mbx-pro-03> The Modern Greek Department in collaboration with Centre for Genocide Studies invites all of you tonight to the exceptional lecture the Yezidi Woman Who Escaped ISIS Slavery Ms Nadia Murad at 5.30-7.30 at the General Lecture Theatre Main Quad 22nd August, 2016 All welcome V. Karalis Nadia Murad is a 21-year-old public advocate for the Yazidi community. She is a survivor of IS sexual enslavement, being among the thousands of Yazidi girls and women who were abducted by the so-called Islamic State ("IS"). Nadia is from Kocho, a Yazidi village in Sinjar, Iraq where IS massacred all males and enslaved all females and children. Nadia was used as a sex slave by more than 12 IS fighters over a period of three months. Nadia was bought and sold several times by various IS members and was pressured to convert to their version of Islam. Six of her brothers were slaughtered in the Kocho massacre and her mother was subsequently massacred along with 80 other older Yazidi women in whom the IS militants did not see any sexual value. Nadia belongs to the Yazidi religious minority of Iraq. The Yazidi religion is an ancient faith native to parts of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, which preserves indigenous pre-Islamic and even pre-Zoroastrian motifs and practices. Not recognized as "people of the book" by Islamic law, the Yazidis have been targeted over many centuries with successive campaigns of genocidal violence, but they managed to survive in their mountainous homelands. However, political pressures of recent decades have almost eliminated the Yazidi presence in Turkey, and the genocide conducted by the IS group on Aug. 3, 2014 threatens the future of the Yazidi people in Iraq. NADIA'S GLOBAL MISSION Despite the psychological trauma of the brutality and appalling sexual violence to which she was subjected, the massacre of her family, and the destruction of her homeland, Nadia escaped the IS fighters, recovered, and confronted her trauma. She became stronger and decided to lead a humanitarian mission on behalf of her people. She asks the international community to designate the heinous crimes perpetrated against Yazidis and other minorities by IS as genocide and asks the United Nations Security Council to refer these crimes to the International Criminal Court for prosecution. Nadia is also leading a campaign to prompt the Muslim world to reject IS and to condemn IS crimes against humanity, particularly against children and women, carried out in the name of Islam. Her mission includes deterring Muslim youths from joining or supporting IS and asking them to promote tolerance towards the beliefs of others. Through her advocacy, Nadia has met with numerous presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state around the world, in addition to countless meetings with religious and community leaders and other high-level officials. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vrasidas.karalis at sydney.edu.au Tue Aug 30 09:17:26 2016 From: vrasidas.karalis at sydney.edu.au (Vrasidas Karalis) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 23:17:26 +0000 Subject: [Moderngreek-l] REMINDER OF MODERN GREEK STUDIES CONFERENCE IN MELBOURNE Message-ID: <6EAF0960E3F0804D94C4004370716338BF046A34@ex-mbx-pro-03> [cid:A689523A-E0AE-4FEE-9704-5C1231C4841B] Modern Greek Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand 13th Biennial Conference 1-4 December 2016 at La Trobe University Organized by the Greek Studies Program in memory of its benefactor, the late Mr. Anastassios Vassilogiannis on Modern Greek Studies at the Crossroads: Language, Culture and Pedagogy in an Age of Disruption and Innovation Call for Papers Welcoming the new age of 'disruption and innovation', the new Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, declared this to be the most exciting time ever in the history of the Australian nation, with the potential to produce its finest hours. This Conference will both explicitly consider the prospects for Modern Greek Studies in such a context and implicitly demonstrate how the various practitioners of the discipline are positioning their teaching and research to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead. Focusing on aspects of the present circumstances and recent past of Greece, Cyprus and the Greek Diaspora, the Conference will be especially concerned with their potential to attract the interest of Australian students and researchers and to secure the future of the discipline in Australian institutions. Proposals are invited for papers and panel presentations based on the current research and/or teaching of all those involved in Modern Greek Studies in the broadest sense. It is envisaged that sessions will be devoted to: * Matters of pedagogy and curriculum development * New approaches to Modern Greek Studies * Teaching Greek as a foreign and heritage language * Greek literature and arts in national and post-national contexts * Greek Popular culture * Historical and contemporary flows of migration * Diasporic/Transnational identities and networks * The Greek identity in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world * Remembering and re-interpreting the Greek migration experience * Politics of Greek citizenship and belonging * The Greek crisis and the response of the diaspora * Literature and art of the Greek Diaspora * The impact of the European sovereign debt crisis on Greece's identity and position in the world * Greece and the European Union * The crisis and outward migration: brain-drain Greece and the European Union * Historical culture and social memory: uses and abuses of the past * Social change during the 'crisis' * Cyprus in the arts or media today * Cypriot Studies * National and post-national Greek-Cypriot Literature and Arts Submission date: 18 September 2016 [on line or by e-mail at M.Herodotou at latrobe.edu.au] Abstracts should be between 200-300 words in length. Paper presentation: 20 minutes Languages of the conference are both English and Greek. For more details, please visit http://www.latrobe.edu.au/languages-and-linguistics/modern-greek-studies-association-conference-2016 Convenors Dr Maria Herodotou M.Herodotou at latrobe.edu.au Dr Stephie Nikoloudis S.Nikoloudis at latrobe.edu.au Mr Dimitri Gonis D.Gonis at latrobe.edu.au Organising Committee Dr Chris Fifis Professor Stathis Gauntlett Mr Nick Panopoulos Mr Panagiotis Pantazis Mr Andonis Piperoglou Dr Athanasios Spilias Ms Tara Zander -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 11118 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: