Dr. Evangelos Afendras

Dr Arendras holds a BA (1965), MA (1966) and PhD with unanimous distinction (1968) from the Johns Hopkins University and he is in his 6th decade of international University teaching and training, most of which have been in the Pacific and Asia. His entry into the Pacific was through Hawaii when he was awarded a Postdoctoral Research Training Fellowship, Human Geography & Anthropology by the Social Science Research Council, and appointed Senior Fellow Affiliate at the East West Centre & the Univ. of Hawaii (1970). After three years of teaching for the UH postgraduate programme (ESL) and conducting research on Pacific Sociolinguistics, he taught for one semester on World Campus Afloat, Chapman College, Orange County, California. He was a Professor – Seafarer on board the SS Universe Campus, en route around Latin America, W.Africa, the Mediterranean (1974). Subsequently, for several decades he lived and worked in Asia, taught a great variety of subjects cantering on Language-Communication, Culture and Society. He lived with people of different beliefs, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Taoist, even Animists in the Malaysian jungle, and an even greater variety of languages and cultures. Culturally, throughout this Odyssey he was exposed to a multitude of cuisines as a consumer and producer, even taught to Malaysians and more recently his Indian Institute of Management Director in the Himalayan foothills how to make Greek Moussaka! Profound intercultural insights he also gained from cross-cultural marriage, the ultimate experience in interpersonal, ‘organizational’, and indeed ‘strategic’ communication, and the tasks of negotiation.