The Department of Classics is pleased to present The Joan Palevsky Lecture in Classics. The lecture will be given by Angelos Chaniotis on “The Polis as a Stage: Theatricality and Illusion in the Long Hellenistic Age.” Chaniotis is a Professor of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Looking for Utopia around every corner of the “New World,” 17th and 18th century Europeans saw in the Jesuit-Guaraní Republic of Paraguay an ancient Greek polity nestled deep within the heart of Spanish America. This talk examines the evolution of that European narrative as well as the carefully crafted response that emerged from the Americas...