Athens, Greece

Each summer, the American College of Greece and the Lyceum Program partner together to host a multi-week trip for up to fifteen Lyceum students, who live and study together while exploring the history and culture of Athens, Greece. Interested students can learn more during our spring info session.

American College of Greece

Founded in Smyrna, Asia Minor, in 1875 and relocated to Athens in 1923, The American College of Greece is Europe's oldest and largest American-sponsored college. Its campus sits at the edge of Athens, with easy access to all city points. Each summer, ACG hosts more than 3,500 students from more than 62 countries in their extensive study abroad program.

Study

Students study the literature and culture of Athenian democracy with Lyceum professors and the American College of Greece faculty. Seminar readings include Thucydides, Aristophanes, Euripides and Plato, and lectures in classical Greek art, history, politics and drama. The seminars and lectures provided context for a series of ACG-planned excursions to Delphi, Sounion, Nafplion, Olympia, Corinth, Mycenae and Epidaurus.

Seminars

Our weekly activities center around daily seminars covering some of the great literature of fifth-century Athens, supplemented by lectures from the ACG faculty. Remarkably, the Athenians invented many genres of literature - from tragedy and comedy to history to philosophic dialogue - that became enduring sources of self-knowledge and humane critique in later cultures. In these works, we encounter various ways of thinking about the fundamental human questions that the Athenians encountered in trying to understand and govern themselves.

Explore

In their free time, students and faculty immerse themselves in the everyday life of Athenians while also visiting many museums and archaeological sites in Athens, along with the nearby island of Hydra. Notable sites in Athens include the Acropolis, the Benaki Museum, the National Archaeological Museum, the Ancient Agora and the Lyceum of Aristotle. Scholars also have the opportunity to attend an opera performance in the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus at the foot of the Acropolis.