The history of the French School at Athens is intricately entwined with that of the city of Athens and its people. This connection has been rich and mutually beneficial. The French School has played a role in the city’s urban and social history, and Athens has been a place of learning for the resident French academic community. As a result of this bidirectional relationship, the French School had a unique, but not very well-known, history in its host city. By establishing itself in the capital city of the new state in 1846, the French School did not just set up shop in the “homeland of art and literature.” It also put down roots in a land where its members discovered a living, spoken Greek language, and people who were both heirs to a prestigious past and actors in an unpredictable present. For many members of the French School, the city of Athens was their first “school” in Greece.

Lucile Arnoux-Farnoux and Alexandre Farnoux have recently published a fascinating account of the history of the French School at Athens, titled, À l’ombre du Lycabette: L’École française et la ville d’Athènes (Athens 2022). That account will serve as the basis for their joint lecture (delivered in English).

About the speakers:

Lucile Arnoux-Farnoux is a professor of comparative literature at the University of Tours specializing in the study of Modern Greece. She has edited Le double voyage: Paris-Athènes 1919-1939 (Athens 2018) and Le double voyage: Paris-Athènes 1945-1975 (Athens 2021), and has translated the work of several Greek novelists of the 20th and 21st century, including Melpo Axioti, Thanassis Valtinos, Rhea Galanaki, and Minos Efstathiadis.