2026

Friday, January 30, 2026

Abstract

Just a few years after the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, Athenians attacked and seized Eion. A small Greek city-state in the Northern Aegean, its connections to Persia were peripheral, and its conquest has sparked scholarly debate as a result. This talk offers one perspective on Eion's conquest, contextualizing it in the Mediterranean timber trade by elucidating its perceived role in Athens' political economy. Seizing and colonizing Eion gave Athenians access to timber resources which allowed them to cheaply satisfy critical military and domestic needs, paving the way for Athens' rise as an imperial power. I will first discuss the importance of timber suitable for building and maintaining Athens' state-of-the-art navy, a topic long noted by scholars. I will then contribute to scholarship by discussing timber's role in construction more broadly as well as timber's role as a source of energy at Athens. Finally, I will touch on the important role that specialized labor played in Eion's capture. By connecting these aspects together, I hope to better contextualize Eion's seizure in what I am calling the "Arboreal Economy.

Friday, January 16, 2026

Abstract

This talk traces the history of Apokries (carnival) festivities in Istanbul in the early 20^th century until the 1940s, when they disappeared. It aims to explore questions of urban space, class, gender, and ethnic identities against the background of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish nation-building efforts. Centered in Tatavla, a small lower-class Greek-Orthodox neighborhood in Istanbul, Apokries and Clean Monday fair were moments of collective entertainment and consumption. During the Ottoman period, the festivities had a multi-ethnic, semi-underground character, which was not necessarily embraced by all, but largely tolerated. Drawing on Greek and Ottoman-Turkish sources, this talk first aims to draw the social and cultural dynamics at play in festivities and how they were viewed by the Greek-Orthodox elite, Ottoman authorities, and Muslims at the end of the Ottoman Empire. The talk then turns to Turkish newspapers of the 1920s and 19230s, which documented the Apokries’ growing scale and participation, while simultaneously attacking it as Greek, Christian and foreign. By tracing these shifting representations, the paper shows how the marginalization and eventual disappearance of Apokries formed part of a broader project of Turkish nation-building, modernity, secularism, and remaking of Istanbul’s urban public space.