Poetry, History and Diaspora: Echoing the Past, Poeting From the Present

Nikos Papastergiadis is an Honorary Professor at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. He was formerly a Visiting Professor in the School of Art, Design and Media, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Chair of the International Advisory Board for the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore. Co-chair of the Cultural Advisory Board for the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, Melbourne. His current research focuses is a project on photography and memory, as well as another on the transformation arts precincts. His publications include Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Metaphor and Tension (2004) Spatial Aesthetics: Art Place and the Everyday (2006), Cosmopolitanism and Culture (2012), Ambient Perspectives (2014), On Art and Friendship (2020), The Museums of the Commons (2020, The Cosmos in Cosmopolitanism (2023). His new book the John Berger and Me: A Migrant’s Eye, was published in 2024. He is also the author of numerous essays which have been translated into over a dozen languages and appeared in major catalogues such as the Biennales of Sydney, Liverpool, Istanbul, Gwanju, Taipei, Lyon, Thessaloniki and Documenta 13.

Angela Costi is a poet and writer with a background in social justice, law and community arts. Since 1994, her creative gatherings, including plays, short fiction and essays, have been published, performed, awarded, broadcast and translated. The author of six poetry collections. Her recent chapbook is Adversarial Practice, published in Cordite Poetry Review, which was commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Prize 2024. She received the High Commendation for Contribution to Arts and Culture, Merri-bek Award 2021. She is known as Αγγελικη Κωστη among the Cypriot Greek diaspora. She lives on unceded Wurundjeri land.

Dr. George Mouratidis is an early career researcher, poet and translator. He is a Fellow of the Literary Studies programme in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, where he writes on the literature of the Beat Generation and Counterculture. He co-founded the literary magazine Kalliope X in 2020 for which he was director and poetry editor and is currently a committee member of the Melbourne School of Literature (MSL) where he teaches Beat poetics. Works include his translation of poet Nikos Nomikos, Noted Transparencies (Owl Press, 2016) and his debut collection of poetry, Angel Frankenstein (Soul Bay, 2018).

Andonis Piperoglou (chaired by) is the Hellenic Senior Lecturer in Global Diasporas at the University of Melbourne. He is a specialist in migration history and has published extensively on Greek Australia. His is editor (with Francesco Ricatti) of Researching Migration on Indigenous Lands: Challenges, Reflections, Pathways (Springer: 2025) and his book, Making Greek Settlers: Racial Inclusions and Exclusions in White Australia, will be published with the University of Illinois Press in 2026. In the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Andoni teaches subjects on migration and diaspora.