Digital Material | Creative Educational Approaches to Literary Archives and Research Libraries: The C. P. Cavafy Archive and Library

Did Lawrence of Arabia read Cavafy? And what about Cavafy? Was he a fan of Sherlock Holmes?

Discover a series of learning materials created by the Cavafy Archive offering new ways of approaching literature at every school level.

The Cavafy Archive is livening and enriching the learning experience for school students and teachers, both inside and outside the classroom. Original learning materials, creative exercises, carefully curated examples, and unexpected connections drawn between materials in digital collections, archives, libraries, catalogues, and stores in Greece and around the world all open up new avenues for understanding literary output and the cultural tradition. A series of rounded lessons and learning material dossiers incorporating self-assessment exercises, activities, and detailed teaching proposals, and supplemented with digital materials adapted specially for long-distance learning. And all of it open access – freely available to teachers, school students, and anyone else who might find these materials interesting.

A series of open-access, online Cavafy Archive lessons is to be developed as part of this program.

Unlocking the Cavafy Archive: People – Images – Stories

Lesson 1: Using literary archives: From research to education
Lesson 2: The personal archive of C. P. Cavafy: Reflections of the poet’s life
Lesson 3: Writing the self: Diary notes, autobiographical and biographical texts in the Cavafy archive
Lesson 4: Visual representations of C. P. Cavafy: Photographic and painted portraits in the archive
Lesson 5: The poet’s personal library: An overview
Lesson 6: The poet at work: Literary manuscripts, drafts and notes in the archive
Lesson 7: From manuscript to print: C. P. Cavafy’s publishing tactics
Lesson 8: C. P. Cavafy and the Greek community in Egypt
Lesson 9: The poet among his contemporaries: Intellectual and artistic networks in Greece
Lesson 10: C. P. Cavafy in the English-speaking world

Digital Learning Material

Addressed to teachers of all grades, students and the general public.

These materials will be made available on Classroom in October 2022.

Cost: Free Admission

The learning materials of the “Creative Educational Approaches to Literary Archives and Research Libraries: The C. P. Cavafy Archive and Library” program were developed as part of the “Training Educators in the Use of Literary Archives and Research Libraries for Literacy (Cavafy Archive – Onassis Library)” project, run in collaboration with the Hellenic Institute of Educational Policy (IEP), with Polyxeni Bista (Modern Greek literature lecturer, and lead IEP consultant) and Anastasios Emvalotis (Associate Professor at the Department of Primary School Education, University of Ioannina, and Member of the IEP Administrative Board) acting as consultants.

Head of Project

Takis Kayalis: Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the Hellenic Open University

Project team

Marili Douzina: philologist with a doctorate in literary education from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Sofia Zisimopoulou: philologist and doctoral candidate at the Athens School of Fine Arts
Alexandros Katsigiannis: Assistant Professor of Modern Greek Literature, University of Crete
Evangelia Moula: philologist with a doctorate in children’s literature from the University of the Aegean
Angeliki Mousiou: philologist and Head of Scholarly research at the Cavafy Archive

Project Coordinator

Marianna Christofi: Coordinator of Communication and Ιnitiatives at the Cavafy Archive