IONIAN ISLANDS SEMINAR

Today is the last day of the full and fascinating seminar on The History and Culture of the Ionian Islands, at the Durrell School of Corfu.

Some of the highlights have been presentations by younger Greek, Italian and Cypriot scholars, like Athanasios (Sakis) Gekas, Kostas Kardamis, Benedetta Bessi, Eleni Calligas and Evangelia Skoufari.

The excellent programme organisation and academic direction by Anthony Hirst and moderation by Peter Mackridge have made the whole week extremely worthwhile, and the papers by Peter Mackridge, Robert Holland and others convinced me that it was the right decision to come to Corfu now especially for this event.

The external visits and walking tours were also extremely informative and enjoyable, and we managed to avoid the worst of the rain.

It would be good if this theme could become a regular fixture.

Postscript, Saturday 22 May:

The last day included an informative illustrated lecture on Heptanesian painting in the eighteenth century, given by Anastassios Koutsouris, and a performance by a large number of the participants of a project based on Solomos' The Free Besieged.
This performance project, devised by Sean McCrum and Paddy Salmon, proved to be an extraordinarily moving experience, which deserves to be performed and recorded professionally, and which should one day be enacted on the spot in Zakynthos where Solomos listened to the cannon-fire from Missolonghi (which inspired the first draft of this magnificent but fragmentary and unfinished work).

I look forward to the publication of the seminar papers in book form, and to future seminars on specific periods of the history and culture of the Ionian Islands.