Vrasidas Karalis
Professor Vrasidas Karalis
- Post Nominals: FAHA
- Fellow Type: Fellow
- Elected to the Academy: 2024
- Section(s): European Languages And Cultures
Biography
Vrasidas Karalis holds the Chair of Sir Nicholas Laurantos in Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies at the University of Sydney. His main areas of research are Greek studies, Film Studies, Greek-Australian Literature, Byzantine Culture and Theology, and the work of Patrick White. His main publications in English include, A History of Greek Cinema (Continuum 2012), Realism in Greek Cinema (I.B. Tauris, 2017), The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos, (Berhghan Press, 2021), Theo Angelopoulos: Filmmaker and Philosopher (Palgrave, 2023), Recollections of Mr Manoly Lascaris (Brandl & Sclesinger, 2007), The Demons of Athens (Brandl & Schlesinger, 2013), Reflections on Presence (re.Press, 2016) and The Glebe Point Road Blues (Brandl & Sclesinger, 2021). His personal memoir Farewell to Robert (Sydney 2023) has been translated into Greek and was nominated for best translation state awards.
He has translated Patrick White’s Voss and The Vivisector, as well as well Michael Dransfield’s and Martin Johnston’s poems into Greek. He has also edited volumes on Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt and Cornelius Castoriadis. He has been, until recently, the President of the Modern Greek Studies Association of Australian and New Zealand. He is the editor of Modern Greek Studies (Australian and New Zealand) and on the board of four academic and literary journals. He is currently working on a book length study on the concept of the sublime as expressed and visualised in contemporary cinema.
In Greek his publications are varied and diverse. He has translated four volumes of Byzantine historiography, and has written monographs on Nikos Kazantzakis, Dionysios Solomos and Andreas Angelakis. His recent memoir The Stories of my Grandmother (Doma, 2024) has become a best-seller. He has received the prize of the Greek Translators League for his translation of Patrick White’s Voss. Recently he received the highest honour awarded to a lay person by the Patriarch of Constantinople, who give him the title of the Ecumenical Archon of the Word.