Leading Scholar Katherine Fleming Presents Impact of Greek Culture Lecture

Katherine E. Fleming, a leading scholar and thought leader, will present the 2025–2026 Thalia Potamianos Lecture Series on the Impact of Greek Culture.

Dr. Maria Georgopoulou, Director of the Gennadius Library, praised Fleming’s appointment, saying, “Professor Fleming’s unparalleled expertise and deep insights into the interconnected histories of Greek and Jewish cultures make her the ideal speaker for this year’s Potamianos Lecture Series. Her scholarship not only illuminates the past but also fosters a greater understanding of the enduring impact of these traditions on the modern world.”

The lectures will be free and accessible both live and via livestream in three cities: Los Angeles, CA on January 12, 2026; New York City, NY on May 6, 2026; and Athens, Greece on October 8, 2026.

Fleming explained that this year’s theme, “These Two Points of Influence: Judaism, Hellenism, and Modern Greece,” explores the Greek and Jewish traditions—their intersections, tensions, and enduring influence on what is often considered the origins of Western Civilization. She noted that the cohabitation of the two cultures has been both harmonious and conflictual, and that modern Greece has largely forgotten its Jewish past, even though Jews lived in Greece long before Christianity.

Andreas Zombanakis, Chairman of the Gennadius Library’s Board of Overseers, said, “Katherine Fleming is a distinguished scholar who delves into the long relationship between two ancient communities in a challenging series of lectures spanning from antiquity to the present day.”

2025–2026 Lecture Schedule for “These Two Points of Influence: Judaism, Hellenism, and Modern Greece”

• Lecture I: Bakeries and Synagogues: The Shared Greek and Jewish Space of the Late Imperial Mediterranean
  Monday, January 12, 2026 – The Getty Villa Museum, Pacific Palisades, CA

• Lecture II: To Die Like a True Greek: Greeks and Jews Since World War II
  Wednesday, May 6, 2026 – NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York, NY

• Lecture III: Title To Be Announced
  Thursday, October 8, 2026 – Cotsen Hall, Athens, Greece

About the Speaker

Katherine E. Fleming serves as CEO and President of the J. Paul Getty Trust and holds the Alexander S. Onassis Professorship of Hellenic Culture and Civilization in the Department of History at New York University. She authored Greece, a Jewish History, which won both the National Jewish Book Award and the Runciman Prize. Fleming is an expert on the religious cultures of the Mediterranean.

She holds memberships and honors including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Commander in the Greek Order of Beneficence, Chevaliere in the French Legion of Honor, and Commandeure in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Fleming studied at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley.