Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture 2025-2026 Lecture Series
Daily Life Encounters between the Byzantines and the Ottomans
Siren Çelik, Marmara University
October 20, 2025 | 12:00 PM (EDT, UTC -4) | Zoom
Theodore Metochites and Christ mosaic, detail, ca. 1316–1321. Chora church, Constantinople (Istanbul)
The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the first lecture in our 2025–2026 lecture series.
The Byzantines and the Ottomans were both rivals and neighbors, co-existing and fighting each other at the same time. In addition to their political, military and economic interactions, the Byzantines and the Ottomans were also in close cultural contact with each other. Byzantine and Ottoman histories as well as material artefacts preserve the memories of these encounters. Moreover, sources such as Byzantine religious dialogues and travelers’ accounts provide fascinating insights into the daily life encounters between these two cultures whose borders and life styles were often fluid. This talk will present some vignettes of daily life encounters between the Byzantines and the Ottomans, especially exploring the Byzantines’ perception of the Ottomans’ daily habits, food and clothing.
Siren Çelik is an associate professor at the History Department of Marmara University, Istanbul. She obtained her PhD in Byzantine Studies from the University of Birmingham in 2016. Her research interests are late Byzantine history, Byzantine literature, daily life and Byzantine-Ottoman interactions. Along with several articles and book chapters, she is the author of Manuel II Palaiologos (1350-1425): A Byzantine Emperor in a Time of Tumult (Cambridge University Press, 2021, paperback 2022) and a Byzantine poetry anthology in Turkish translation, with notes and commentary. She has held fellowships from Dumbarton Oaks, ANAMED-Koç University, Boğaziçi University and Harvard University.
Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/daily-life-encounters-between-the-byzantines-and-the-ottomans