One-day Symposium “Representations of Women in Literature and Street Art: Goliarda Sapienza as a Model of Women’s Emancipation”

With notable success, on Tuesday 20 January 2026, at the Faculty of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the one-day symposium entitled “Representations of Women in Literature and Street Art: Goliarda Sapienza as a Model of Women’s Emancipation” was brought to a close, organised on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The event forms part of a modular programme of culture and education dedicated to women and to social awareness of every form of gender-based violence, bringing together literature, street art, and hip hop music with educational and scholarly initiatives, from November 2025 to February 2026.

The symposium was co-organised by the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Programme “Monument Management: Archaeology, City and Architecture” in collaboration with the non-profit organisation Art, Graffiti in the City (AGC), with the participation of the Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Philosophy (NKUA), the “Myrsini Zorba” Laboratory of Modern Greek Studies (Sapienza Università di Roma), the Department of Italian Language and Literature (NKUA), and the Italian Cultural Institute of Athens.

The day opened with the inauguration of a street art intervention dedicated to Goliarda Sapienza, a work by the street artist NIQUE (Nicole Tsokou), on the 7th floor of the Faculty of Philosophy, symbolically foregrounding the university space as a site of public discourse and critical visibility. It was followed, by welcome addresses delivered by the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Professor Dimitris Drosos, the Director of the IPGP, Professor Dimitris Plantzos, and Dr Evi Athanasekou on behalf of AGC.

The scholarly programme developed a productive dialogue between representations of women in contemporary Italian literature and the performing arts; women in Greek intellectual life and education from the Metapolitefsi to the 21st century; and visual representations in public space examined through the lens of cultural management. Particular emphasis was placed on how image and narrative do not merely “reflect” reality, but participate in its formation—and therefore in the capacity either to normalise or to challenge gender hierarchies. The symposium featured papers by Professor Ioannis Tsolkas, Chair of the Department of Italian Language and Literature; Dr Anna Griva; Professor Christos Bintoudis; Professor Francesca Zaccone; Dr Dionysis Mourelatos; Ms Kalliopi Kountouri; and Mr Anastasios Kountouris.

Finally, students of the IPGP “Monument Management” delivered five-minute talks on the theme “Women in Literature”.

The symposium highlighted the value of interdisciplinarity and of linking theory, art, and institutional responsibility: cultural management was approached as a critical practice of choices (what is made visible, what is silenced, what is institutionalised), particularly when the subject concerns women’s experience, gender-based violence, and the right to safety and dignity.

The programme will continue with further educational and artistic interventions within the Faculty of Philosophy in the following months, steadily reinforcing the message that violence against women is not a “topical issue”, but a matter of fundamental rights and public education.