Gennadius Library

Katherine E. Fleming, President and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust and Alexander S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization in the Department of History at New York University, delivered the opening lecture of the 2026 Thalia Potamianos Lecture Series.

Muhabbet is an initiative sponsored by the American College of Greece, the National Hellenic Research Institute and the Gennadius Library, 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.