Profile picture for Maria Hadjipolycarpou

Contact Information

707 S Mathews Ave
4080 FLB
M/C 168
Urbana, IL  61801

Teaching Assistant Professor

Biography

Maria Hadjipolycarpou is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Modern Greek Studies specializing in postcolonial and Mediterranean studies.  She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan. Her research delves into the intersections of autobiography, politics, and narrative communities in literatures of the Eastern Mediterranean. Her work also encompasses Greek literature and culture, the interplay between religion, modernity, and the state in the Eastern Mediterranean, and themes of class, gender, language, and identity in Mediterranean literature. Her interests extend to global studies (Africa, Asia, America), poetry, poetic form, orality, literacy, and textuality. She is completing a book on narrative communities in the Eastern Mediterranean. She has a forthcoming study on identities and peaceful coexistence in post-secular societies under review  Maria has presented her research extensively across the United States, Canada, and Europe and has actively organized panels for MLA, ACLA, and MGSA. Before joining  Illinois she was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University (2016-2017) and a James A. Winn Graduate Student Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan (2013-2014). She taught at Columbia University (2014 - 2017) and at The City University of New York, Queens College (2017- 2019).  She has been the organizer of the Arthur G. Nikelly Annual Lecture (2021-present) and the John S. Latsis Public Lecture (2022-present). Maria is currently an elected member of the MLA Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies Forum on Mediterranean Studies. 

 

Education

Comparative Literature, Ph.D., University of Michigan

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Michigan
Master of Arts, Purdue University
Bachelor's of Arts, Humanities, and Letters, University of Cyprus

Courses Taught

  • GRKM 260 Decolonizing the Body: Love and Thought in the Poetry of C. P. Cavafy
  • CLCV 120 Storytelling and Transformation: Narratives of Self since the Odyssey
  • GRKM 201 & 202 Elementary Modern Greek                                                                                                                                   
  • GRKM 403 & 404 Intermediate Greek
  • GRKM 453 & 454 Advanced Greek (FA 25)

Additional Campus Affiliations

Teaching Assistant Professor, Classics

Recent Publications

Hadjipolycarpou, M. (2017). Epilogue: Immigration, Transformation, Innovation. In C. F. Florescu, & S.-M. Ma (Eds.), Transnational Narratives in Englishes of Exile (pp. 249-254). Lexington Books.

Hadjipolycarpou, M. (2015). The Nation of Saints: The National Theological Rhetoric of Archbishop Makarios III (1913–1977). Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 33(1), 127-154. https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.2015.0019

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