CafeLitt 181: Persia and Greece, Revisited

Wed 25 Aug 2010, 19:00, by Yusef Amiri, at Bistro Burritoville:3rd floor, 2055 Rue Bishop, Montreal,QC (Map)

Western media and historiography have exaggerated a lot about the relation of Persian Empire and Greece and presents a distorted picture and imbalanced view which blows the importance of Greece out of proportion. This trend actually started in the Classical Greece itself and has continued to our day. We hear ridiculous claims such as 'Greeks saved the civilization and guaranteed human freedom and liberty by defeating Persia' or clichés such as 'Eastern tyranny' and so.
In the past couple decades this view has been questioned and critical research has started to reveal the true picture of Persian Empire and its relations with Greece. In this talk we are going to have a look at the history of Greece and introduce these new efforts and as an example, look at the Battle of Marathon, the first major event in the so-called 'Greco-Persian Wars'.


Comments:

With all due respect to the orator of session:

1) I believe, any attempt to magnify and exaggerate "having" has a root in lack of "being".
Unfortunately, this sense of shortage in "being" among some of us yields to spin yarns

2) Whenever you ask the believers of "The Great Empire" about the intellectual products of that era, the same answer comes up: "They were destroyed!". How come there is no reference from Achaemenid Empire! in the successors dynasties. Even the latest reference of Ferdowsi backs to Arsacid dynasty.

3) Assuming whatever claimed in this session really happened (which opens to doubt), SO WHAT?

x at Fri 27 Aug 2010

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CaféLitt is not a place; it is a gathering of minds. We are a group of mostly Persian young students, scholars and professionals who gather every Thursday evening around 19h00 to discuss various subjects and share different ideas, ranging vastly from history to science, from literature to fine arts. We started these gatherings on Jan 17th, 2006 with 5 people and have reached an average weekly audience of about 40 people. Each week, one of us takes the responsibility of presenting a topic for about an hour in a subject s/he is intimately familiar with or has an expertise in. Afterwards, the evening turns into a discussion forum and all members of the audience will have an opportunity to ask their question(s) and share their points of view.

Some new and exciting ideas were born out of CaféLitt sessions. We have started a series of monthly meetings called CaféCinema during which a movie is presented and discussed in some detail afterward. This year's program of CaféCinema revolves around the history of Iranian cinema. Some Cinema students hold these sessions (mainly conducted in English) on the last Sunday of each month.

Likewise, CaféLitt BookClub is an activity where people who like books decide to read a book each month and discuss it during a cozy Café session on the second Sunday of every month.

CaféTheatre is a series of semi-rehearsed sessions in which we select a play, divide the roles among different people and read the play from the text in front of an audience. Similar to other CaféLitt sessions, each CaféTheatre session will end with a discussion of that day's play.  

CaféScience and CaféPhilo are our plans for near future. The purpose of CaféScience is to provide a forum for the public discussion and understanding of all scientific findings and ideas, with an emphasis on new, interesting and publicly relevant topics. During CaféPhilo sessions, we will talk about philosophy, its history and all its related aspects.

CaféLitt is pen to all comments, suggestion and new ideas. CaféLitt provides an unparalleled opportunity for learning about culture, science and philosophy in a relaxed and friendly environment, and for sharing your knowledge and expertise with like-minded members of your community.

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