Month: February 2025

Keep Athens Weird

“I’m not saying it’s aliens, but it’s aliens.” (Image from Dogtooth, 2009)
The Lion Gate at Mycenae

I didn’t go on the weekend trip to the Argolid region (Nemea, Mycenae, with ouzo and wine tastings, etc.) this past weekend, because Nibbler has been in decline. She seems to be doing better, but she is approaching her eighteenth birthday, so we’re realistic about her health and her prospects. She’s been losing weight for the better part of this year. We discovered she has thyroid disease and got that under control, but that revealed her underlying kidney disease, which is harder to control. She’s here with us in Greece because we couldn’t imagine being away from her when it comes to it. She was in a rough patch last week, so I stayed with her while Christina, David, and the students spent a few days out of Athens.

I thought I would tell you a bit more about what I’m doing here as part of the program. Christina is the lead faculty-in-residence, and as such she is teaching two political science courses. David handles the archaeology course and the many fascinating site visits. I am teaching a course that is mostly focused on the films of Yorgos Lanthimos but which also makes some room for talking about the wider so-called Greek Weird Wave. If you don’t know what that is, or have heard the term without much context, here is Steve Rose’s article from The Guardian in 2011 that accelerated the use of the term internationally.

The class I’m teaching is about myth in the films of Lanthimos, but anyone who has seen most of his films knows or suspects that these influences must be more or less implicit. We wouldn’t necessarily expect Lanthimos to do an updated adaptation of Oedipus Rex, even though we do expect him to make films that handle incest and familial violence as prominent themes. So that’s really where we are with this class. We watch all of Lanthimos’s films up through The Killing of A Sacred Deer (2017), and we also add in two films by other directors associated with the Weird Wave: Tsangari’s Attenberg (2010) and Koutras’s Strella (2009). We read some ancient texts like Hesiod and Euripides as well as some contemporary writing about the films we’re watching. We’re trying to get at this theme of weirdness, strangeness, oddity and hold it up to the light, look at it from as many angles as we can.

Last night we watched and discussed Dogtooth (2009), which is the film that put Lanthimos on the international stage. It is his second feature and firmly established both his directorial style and the thematic concerns that would remain a part of his work up through today. The students had varied and strong reactions to it, which always makes for worthwhile and valuable class discussion. They certainly were not bored, and for those who were made uncomfortable, that did not stop them from having something to say. This was our third film after watching Kinetta (2005) and Attenberg, and it feels like we’re off to an excellent start.

And is if that wasn’t enough film for you, here’s one more. Like many, many other cinephiles I’ve been thinking a lot about David Lynch since his recent death. The combined grief and admiration manifested in concrete ways here in Athens. Two different organizations held screenings of all of his cinematic works. The first ended with an all-day Twin Peaks marathon of the entire series. The second was called The Complete Filmography, and that one ended with a screening of the international pilot for Twin Peaks on Twin Peaks Day, February 24. Virtually all of this latter series was sold out when I first saw the poster for it. The only tickets left were to the February 23 screening of Inland Empire in its 4K restoration. I leapt at the chance and took myself out on a film date Sunday night. The Cinobo Opera is a pretty big theatre near the university downtown, and the place was packed that night. Inland Empire is a three-hour film, and it didn’t get rolling until 9:30pm, but I had fortified myself with an after-dinner americano, which did the trick. Maybe it was the larger context, but I came away from that screening with a deeper appreciation for that film than I had previously. Christina and I are currently in the middle of the Twin Peaks rewatch we began shortly after Lynch’s passing. We watched Episodes 11 and 12 on Twin Peaks Day, and we’ll keep it going. I expect we’ll make it through the whole thing while we’re here.

Theban So

There are many wonderful things about the Bucknell/Penn State in Athens Program, but among the top must be the fantastic weekend trips that take us out of Athens several times throughout the term. The first of these was this past weekend when a bus took us first to Delphi and then on to the monastery at Hosios Loukas and finally on to Thebes before our return.

As I remind myself and you repeatedly, I am not a classicist, but I have read a smattering of ancient texts throughout my life and education. I have certainly heard of the Oracle of Delphi. But for whatever reason, be it my own inclination to dramatize or some cinematic influence, I have always imagined the oracle to reside in a cave rather than a classical temple structure. And I certainly never imagined her surrounded by an extensive complex of structures. And yet, that is so clearly the situation at Delphi. Perhaps long before the appearance of the temple complex, there was an oracle at a site of pilgrimage in the foothills of Mount Parnassus, and maybe it was in a cave at one time. But that’s not the oracle in the ancient texts I read. No, this is the site as we have found it, and there is nothing about it that is disappointing, for all that it is different from my imagination. Instead, the reality of the site and its dramatic natural setting instill their own sense of awe and wonder while raising questions of their own. As a scholar, these are the kinds of questions that drive me rather than frustrate me. I am not upset or uncomfortable with these questions; I am fascinated.

Dr. David Scahill points out the key architectural features of the reconstructed Athenian treasury at Delphi.

Did I know that the site at Delphi included an enormous amphitheater just above and behind the Temple of Apollo? No, I did not. Did I know that well above that amphitheater there is also a full-size stadium, because Delphi was one of the four sites for the pan-hellenic games (of which Olympia was only one)? No, I did not.

Christina in front of the stadium at Delphi

And maybe it’s because I either never saw Albert Tournaire’s famous rendering of the site in its heyday, or I didn’t appreciate what I was looking at when I did. A print of this painting is on display just inside the entrance to the museum at the Delphi site, and it helped to cement the conception of the place that our climb through it had formed in me.

Albert Tournaire, 1894

Inside the museum collections, I came face-to-face with the reconstruction of the Naxos Sphinx that once sat high above the Delphi site. A replica of this sphinx almost figured prominently in the film that Christina and I made with Daniel Nienhuis over the summer, so I felt this meeting was special in more ways than the obvious. And for the record, we made the right choice not to use the Naxos Sphinx in our film.

Brian films the Sphinx of Naxos

After a long day of trekking up and down the marble stairs of Delphi, Christina and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with our colleagues David (who teaches the archaeology course that is part of the program) and Dimitra (who is one of the fantastic staff members at the Athens Center, which manages various logistics for our program).

Christina, Brian, David, and Dimitra

Delphi is also quite close to the ski resort town of Arachova in the foothills of Mt. Parnassus. Since Christina and I spent seven years living above the Adirondacks, we immediately reacted to Arachova as Greece’s Lake Placid. It has a tremendous amount of natural beauty, a dizzying variety of ski shops, boutiques, restaurants and bars, as well as A LOT of rich people. It was a nice place to visit, but it is the kind of place that raises more questions than it answers, and maybe in that way it’s not unlike Delphi.

Arachova, a beautiful and chic ski resort

As we left Delphi and Arachova, we stopped at a still working Byzantine-era monastery, Hosios Loukas. It was a rainy day, which somehow seemed to fit, and we arrived during a service, so that the sound of the liturgy filled the courtyards as we quietly made our way through the galleries and museum exhibits as well as into the church where the service was underway.

From the monastery, we continued on to the town of Thebes. Yes, for those of you who still remember your Sophocles, Thebes is the kingdom ruled by Laius and later by his son, Oedipus. In fact, on our way into the foothills of Mt. Parnassus on Friday, David had directed our bus driver to stop at the side of a quiet and lonely road just after sunset. In the faltering light, we walked a few yards to a stone monument with a bronze plaque in ancient Greek, which identifies it as the very crossroads where Oedipus unknowingly killed his father. It was uncanny to stand in that place, yielding to the encroaching darkness, despite knowing very well the meaning of the spot, wondering if knowing thyself is sufficient and not merely necessary.

But on our way out of the Copaic Basin, our goal was to visit the Thebes Museum and learn more about its collections and the importance of the site. Thebes is particularly special to our Bucknell Program, because David and our very own colleagues Dr. Stephanie Larson and Dr. Kevin Daly have done important work on the digs at the site, and some of their finds are in the collection (again with the sphinxes!). The students have seen a lot of museum collections already, and they will certainly see many more, yet they remained eager and attentive as David led us through the museum and its intriguing displays.

Dr. David Scahill introduces students to the collections in the Museum at Thebes.

Though the students had just returned from this exciting weekend trip, Monday found all of us at the National Archaeological Museum with the intent of focusing on the prehistoric collections. I have my own interest in the so-called “frying pans” of the Cycladic culture as part of a film project about which I will be sharing more with you in the weeks ahead.

Students examine some of the key artifacts in the Cycladic exhibit at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Whew! That was quite a weekend. I’m so grateful for this experience, and not the least because it is so obviously of the sort that can’t be easily or quickly processed. I am learning and seeing and feeling so much, that it feels like I am recharging as a person. Writing in my journal every morning and keeping this blog are key parts of making the most of this experience, but I also know that I will continue to learn from it for years and years to come.

Ah, The Siren Song of A Cat at 0430

Until this morning, and aside from a standard couple of days of jet lag, I have been sleeping very well here in Athens. I don’t generally, so it has been a welcome change, and part of that change was doubtless due to the fact that Nibbler was not waking me up sometime in the three o’clock hour, as is her wont. Maybe she was dealing with jet lag, as well, though we all know from Miyazaki that this is unlikely.

Regardless, Nibbler’s trills and occasional yowls woke me at 0430 and eventually roused me out of bed entirely by 0545. We have lived together long enough that I know better than to think I could just feed her and then go back to bed, and this is even more the case these days when her food is such a fraught issue. Nibbler is well into the kidney disease stage of her life, and this has upended her relationship with food. She clearly wants it, but she has little interest in most food we put in front of her. She has an intake appointment with her Athens vet tomorrow morning, so we hope to make the transition to prescription food over the next week. It may be a challenge, though. Well, this is another reason why Athenians’ love/need of coffee is so convenient.

I taught the first session of my course, Mythology in the Films of Yorgos Lanthimos, at The Athens Centre on Monday afternoon. We won’t get to the Classics content of the course until the third week, so for now we were starting out with Lanthimos’s feature directorial debut, Kinetta (2005). It’s not an easy film, but not for the usual reasons when it comes to Lanthimos. Instead of potentially uncomfortable depictions of sex and violence, or the hulking specter of psychosexual taboos, Kinetta offers vaguely mysterious characters shuffling through a virtual anti-narrative with very little dialogue. As one of my students observed (without precisely complaining), it’s boring. I don’t entirely share that assessment, but I come to it with my own interests in independent film, so I’m not exactly impartial. Still, the students were great. They paid attention, and we had a rousing discussion of the film, what it does, and how it does it. It was a solid start to the course, and I assured them that, whether or not they enjoyed any of the future films in the course, none of them will be boring.

I’m also using this opportunity in Athens to really dig into modern Greek. I have been using Duolingo for Greek for over a year now, and that has given me an excellent context to begin more formal learning. I have a moderate vocabulary and some very basic grammar, but I haven’t forced Christina to speak Greek with me, and so my natural reluctance to sound stupid in public has kept me from trying to speak much Greek when I am out and about. To help me with that, I have enrolled in a Greek I class while I am here, and my first class (I’m joining late, sorry!) was last night. It’s been decades since I was in a language classroom, but it felt familiar and in this context a lot of fun. I’m excited to keep going and sound stupid even more often than I already do.

I can’t let this update pass without acknowledging the death of Tom Robbins this week at the age of 92. I didn’t find my way to his novels until I was in college (Thank you, Stacy!), and even then I read most of them after college while I was in the Army, since my English major kept my TBR pile Seussian if not Cyclopean. Robbins has always stood apart like authors I most admire. It’s not that he did something very well that other writers were doing; it’s that he seemed to be doing something entirely his own. Sui generis. On top of that, he was knocking it out of the park. I admire him a great deal as a writer, and from what little I know of him as a person, he seems equally admirable. He found joy and love and reasons to laugh and dance at every turn, and yet he didn’t back down when taking a stand was necessary. This is a model I’d like to emulate more. It’s easier to imagine being one thing or the other: a warrior for a cause, or a jester who keeps people’s spirits afloat in dark times. Robbins seems like an example of someone who could do both as needed. Maybe it’s something about dancing…

You’ll Myth Me When I’m Gone

Some of you know already, but for those who aren’t aware, Christina and I are in our first week of leading our first study abroad program: Bucknell/Penn State in Athens! Christina is the official faculty-in-residence leader of the trip, but as her partner and the instructor of one course this term, I am obviously helping her with the formal and informal duties and obligations related to shepherding ten undergraduates on an 89-day adventure into Greeces both modern and ancient.

Christina is teaching two of her own political science courses related to Greek political development and democracy in theory and practice, while I will be teaching a course on the films of Yorgos Lanthimos and their often fraught relationship with Greek myth. Christina is also responsible for overseeing a Culture and Environment course that brings students (and us) into more direct contact with experts in the modern Greek context, including experts on wildfires, sea turtle conservation, various agricultural concerns, and more. In addition, all of the students take an archaeology course on ancient Greece, and they are given the option of enrolling in a modern Greek course, too.

The students are fantastic, animated, and engaged. We’re all getting over our jet lag, settling in to our surroundings, and finding our bearings around the Pangrati neighborhood of Athens near the Kalimarmaro Olympic stadium and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Christina and I have already twice returned for solid runs in the National Gardens next to the Parliament building, where we ran when came to Athens in December of 2023.

The program is facilitated partly through the Athens Centre, a local philanthropic organization that provides logistical support to academic programs of varying length and focus. There is a large classroom there where I found this wonderful framed poster from a film screening from decades past. It made me feel at home to be part of an organization that cares about sharing modern culture as much as it cares about introducing students to ancient civilization, as well.

One of the other extraordinary parts of this experience is that we chose to bring our elderly cat, Nibbler (she’s almost 18!), along with us on this adventure.

This was the first time Nibbler ever flew in an airplane, and she pretty much handled it like a pro. She was a bit cranky on the second leg of the journey from Frankfurt to Athens, but we all arrived in one piece. Now she is getting to know her new stomping grounds.

Meanwhile, our other adorable feline, Madeleine Albright (the tortie), is back at home in Lewisburg with our house sitters, one of whom comes with a cat of her own, the relatively kittenish Annata (gray and white). We get photographic evidence with some regularity that Madeleine Albright is warming nicely to her new housemate.