Calendar

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.

After a successful first season in 2025, we intend to continue in 2026 our 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.

Organizers

Ilay Romain Ors (PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University),
Catherine Boura (PhD in History, King’s College, University of London),
Elias Kolovos (Research Director, Institute of Historical Research, NHRF),
Anne McCabe (Research Associate, University of Oxford)

The Muhabbet initiative is co-organized by the Institute for Hellenic Culture and the Liberal Arts & The Demos Center of The American College of Greece, the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation.

Muhabbet ‘26 Program

Tuesday, January 27, 2026, 18:30

Antoine the Fortunate (Nefin Dinç, 2020, Anemon Productions)
A Muhabbet conversation between:
Ayhan Aktar and Kalliopi Amygdalou
Moderator: Elias Kolovos
–in partnership with Cinedoc

Cotsen Hall, Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Anapiron Polemou 9, Kolonaki, Athens

Friday, February 13, 2026, 18:30

Centuries of Parenthesis and Wounds that Never Heal?
A Muhabbet conversation between:
Cengiz Aktar and Elias Kolovos
Moderator: İlay Romain Örs

ACG Plaka Building, Ipitou 17B, Plaka, Athens

Monday, March 2, 2026, 19:00

Archaeology, Museums, and Photography in the Late Ottoman Empire: Osman Hamdi Bey and Theodore Macridy Bey
A Muhabbet conversation between:
Bahattin Öztuncay and George Manginis
Moderator: Anne McCabe
–in cooperation with the Benaki Museum

Benaki Museum of Greek Culture, Koumbari 1 and Vas. Sofias Avenue, Athens

Thursday, April 16, 2026, 19:00

“I laugh so that I don’t cry”: Coexistence and Imperial Collapse in Ottoman Greek Satire
A Muhabbet conversation between:
Kutay Onayli and Antonis Nasis
Moderator: Catherine Boura

Cotsen Hall, Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Anapiron Polemou 9, Kolonaki, Athens

Tuesday, May 5, 2026, 20:00

Ottoman/Post-Byzantine/Neohellenic? The arts of the Greeks after Byzantium
A Muhabbet conversation between:
Anna Ballian (Benaki Museum) and Anastasia Drandaki (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens & Benaki Museum)
Moderator: Elias Kolovos (National Hellenic Research Foundation)

ACG Plaka Building, Ipitou 17B, Plaka, Athens

Tuesday, May 26, 2026, 19:00

Greeks in the Ottoman diplomatic service
A Muhabbet conversation between:
Sinan Kuneralp and Catherine Boura
Moderator: İlay Romain Örs

ACG Plaka Building, Ipitou 17B, Plaka, Athens

Exhibition: Permanent Temporality

Exhibition duration: Saturday 25 April – Friday 8 May, 2026

Opening hours: M-F 15:00-18:00, Saturdays 12:00-16:00, closed May 1st

Where:
ACG Art Gallery – The American College of Greece
6 Gravias Street, 15342 Aghia Paraskevi

The Visual Arts Program of the Frances Rich School of Fine and Performing Arts of Deree – The American College of Greece, is very pleased to present its Senior exhibition 2026 in the ACG Gallery, opening on April 24th at 18:30.

About the exhibition

Students completing the Visual Arts program have spent a full academic year to research and realize a project related to their specific interests as emerging visual artists. Graduating students Anna Giakoumakatou, Maria-Luisa Dollete, Konstantina Chatzouli, Phoebe Kainourgiou, and Natalia Zara present the exhibition Permanent Temporality. Please join us at the opening to see their work and meet the artists.

We are living in a state of Permanent Temporality. As old as the earth and as new as the disruptive technologies that change our world by the millisecond, Permanent Temporality speaks to both an enduring philosophy of impermanence, and to a rupture in the timeline. Constant change characterizes the human condition, but for our graduating students, the accelerated existential threats and destabilization of norms manifest psychically through visual hallucinations, dysmorphia and escapist mechanisms which the artists interrogate and engage with. Their sustained acts to see the world explicitly blend their interior mental filters with memory and its errors, forging a subjective and authentic way forward. The exhibition invites viewers into their daily quest to navigate a disorienting present and make meaning of it.