For the fifth consecutive year the Kokkalis Foundation organized the Olympia summer seminars in Ancient Olympia from June 26 to July 10, 2006.
This year the seminars were organized in collaboration with US universities Yale and Duke, with the University of Macedonia and the university of Patras, as well as with the municipality of ancient Olympia and the Interscientific and Intercultural Center of Olympia.
The program of the seminars included two thematic units. The first was entitled “War, Conflict and Identity” and was organized in collaboration with Yale University’s program on War, Conflict and Identity. The program was conducted by the following distinguished faculty: Stathis Kalyvas (Yale University), Ian Shapiro (Yale University), Ignacio Sanchez-Cuenca (Universidad Complutense, Madrid), Dimitris Keridis (Fletcher School, Tufts University) and Daniel Branch (Yale University). The second thematic unit of the seminars was entitled “The Challenges of International Media Technology and Policy” and was organized with the Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism. The seminar was taught by acknowledged academics and researchers, such as Ellen Mickiewicz (Duke University), Milan Smid (Charles University, the Czech Republic) and Marius Lukosiunas (UNESCO Moscow, a cluster office for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Republic of Moldova and Russian Federation).
This year the participation was once again quite impressive. From a total of over 200 applications, the seminars were completed by 40 students, researchers and journalists, from the following countries: Greece (11), Serbia & Montenegro (5), Bulgaria (2), USA (2), Lebanon (1), Kyrgyzstan (3), Poland (2), Belgium (1), Turkey (2), Colombia (1), Cyprus (1), Croatia (1), Tajikistan (1), Ukraine (1), Romania (2), Ghana (1), Italy (1), and Canada (2).
The seminars also included various extra-curricular activities as well as excursions to archaeological sites and museums. Inspired by the Olympic values of peace and cooperation, the Olympia summer seminars have become well established internationally and have been embraced by local authorities as a unique educational initiative of the highest quality. Further, the Olympia seminars demonstrate and reiterate Greece’s protagonist role in Southeastern Europe and in the East Mediterranean region.
(i)The seminars also included various extra-curricular activities as well as excursions to archaeological sites and museums.
