Full Calendar

When:
January – May 2025

Organized by:
The Institute of Hellenic Culture and Liberal Arts, The American College of Greece, the Ottoman History Program at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, and the Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Organizers:
Ilay Romain Ors, Elias Kolovos, Catherine Boura

About the event

Muhabbet is an initiative aiming at bringing together scholars, students, and people interested in the shared social history and cultural heritage of the East Mediterranean. We wish to hold discussions about our common legacies in an informal and friendly environment, like that of the coffeehouses, which originated in the Ottoman East Mediterranean, where people used to come together to develop amicable conversations called muhabbet.

The study of Ottoman history, considerably enriched in recent years, has been read mostly as a prologue to Turkish history, thus leaving the diversity of ethnic and religious groups under its umbrella at the margins of the political, intellectual, and cultural history of the empire. They were much more than that. They not only participated in the everyday life of the imperial state but contributed considerably to the making of the empire’s multicultural heritage. Our initiative aims especially in creating dialogues for the study of the Ottoman and post-Ottoman worlds, considering the contributions of both the Ottoman elite culture as well as the various ethnic and religious groups of the empire to the historical and contemporary societies of the East Mediterranean.

We intend to hold informal conversations on a variety of topics that will bring together people with mutual interests into an open dialogue in the spirit of a friendly chat or Muhabbet. The conversations will facilitate a “safe space” for discussing aspects of the East Mediterranean peoples’ experiences and encourage the understanding of Ottoman history as part of the history of peoples of the region.

The event is free and open to the public. The conversations are going to be held in English.

Program

Monday, January 27, 2025 | 19:00

Intercommunal Musical Legacies of Late Ottoman Istanbul
Merih Erol and Panagiotis Poulos

The Demos Center – The American College of Greece,
Ipitou 17B, Plaka, Athens