[View ALL News Press Releases] On Thursday, November 6 at 6 p.m., Dr. Barbara Tsakirgis, a classical archaeologist and scholar at Vanderbilt University, will present "The Goddess Reborn: the Nashville Athena" at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College. North Central Education Foundation's Peden Fund is sponsoring this illustrated presentation. "The Goddess Reborn" is free and open to the community. In 1931, Nashville, Tennessee, the Athens of the South, built a full scale replica of the Parthenon, the fifth century B.C. temple to Athena in Athens. The Nashville Parthenon stood empty until 1990, when a nearly forty-two foot image of the goddess was crafted to inhabit the building. In 2002 the Nashville Athena was gilded and painted, in order to give the viewer a complete understanding of the appearance of Pheidias' original gold and ivory sculpture in its ancient setting. This lecture will begin with the early history of the Nashville Parthenon, and then will concentrate on the creation of the Nashville Athena. The audience will be taken through the step-by-step process of sculpting the goddess, with photos taken during the eight years of her creation. Details of the Athena, including the newly painted and gilded surface, will be presented. Dr. Tsakirgis is a Professor of Classics and Art History at Vanderbilt University. She received her Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from Princeton and taught at Vanderbilt since that time. As a specialist in Greek architecture and archaeology, especially Greek houses, Dr. Tsakirgis has excavated in Italy, Sicily, and Greece. She has been working at the Athenian Agora since 1993. She has written a number of articles for the American Journal of Archaeology, Hesperia, and Acta Hyperborea and is the author of The Domestic Architecture of Morgantina in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Tsakirgis is the current chair of Vanderbilt's Department of Classical Studies and has served as the Director of Graduate Studies and Director of Undergraduate Studies. She has been member of the Governing Board of the Archaeological Institute of America, an international organization of archaeologists, and is also the secretary/treasurer of the Nashville Society of the AIA as well as a national lecturer for the AIA. She is a member of the board of the Conservancy for the Parthenon and Centennial Park (formerly Parthenon Patrons), a non-profit group that supports and funds the programming and education at the Nashville Parthenon. "The Goddess Reborn" lecture is part of "Experiencing the Parthenon," a project developed by ECTC Professor Jim Murley, whose teaching and research interests focus on Greek and Roman culture. Murley submitted a proposal to the Peden Fund, which is sponsoring two activities. The first, "The Goddess Reborn" lecture, is open to the entire college and the community. In the second, fifty ECTC students will make a "pilgrimage" to the Nashville Parthenon. The participating ECTC students are members of Murley's Ancient to Medieval Art History class and Associate Professor Terri Stewart's European History classes. The student group will travel with ECTC faculty by coach on November 10 to tour the building and to marvel at the colossal statue. All transportation and admission costs will be covered with the generous support of the Peden Fund. Established in 2007 by the estate of the late Kennard and Melva Peden of Elizabethtown, the Peden Fund supports projects that enable ECTC students and professors to further their educational pursuits. Kennard Peden was a farmer and, as a founding member of North Central Education Foundation, was instrumental in establishing ECTC. He and his wife devoted their lives to quietly giving to, and working on, issues of lasting value to the community. For further information contact Professor Jim Murley via e-mail Jim.Murley@kctcs.edu or call the Humanities Division Office (270) 706-8881 or Toll Free: (877) 246-2322 ext. 68881.