GARA ELENI Assistant Professor (tenured)

Contact Details
Dept. of Social Anthropology and History Ktirio Dioikisis, Lofos Panepistimiou GR-81100 Mytilini, Greece

Οffice: Binio Hall, Second Floor
Tel: +30 22510 36337
e-mail: egara@sa.aegean.gr

Courses: I-232: The Balkan Slavs, 15th-18th cc. I-233: Islam and Christianity in the early modern times I-235: History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1839 I-237: Everyday life in the early modern Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean PA/S-020: Sources for the history of the Ottoman Balkans   PA/S-054: Travel and travelers in the Ottoman Empire KIA-11: Specific topics in historiography: Violence in early modern times (post-graduate        course, Programme Master in Social and Historical Anthropology) Biography: Eleni Gara studied History and Archaeology at the University of Athens. She did post-graduate studies at the University of Vienna’s Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies and at the Institute for Oriental Studies, and earned her PhD degree from the University of Vienna in 2001. Her thesis is a social history of an Ottoman Balkan province, the kaza of Kara Ferye (modern Veria), in the 16th and 17th century, on the basis of unpublished Ottoman archival material. She is member of the Comité International d’Études Pré-ottomanes et Ottomanes, the Turkish Studies Association and the Etaireia Meletes Neou Ellenismou, and was the Hannah Seeger Davis post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University’s Program in Hellenic Studies for the academic year 2001-02. Her research interests include intercommunal relations, the administration of justice and political culture in the early modern Balkans and the Ottoman world. Her publications comprise articles on interest-bearing money lending, the formation and functions of communities, judicial institutions, marriage, conversion and apostasy, as well as collective action. Selected Publications Books 2013 Greek paradoxes: Patronage, civil society and violence (co-edited with K. Rozakou, in Greek). Athens: Alexandreia. 2011 Popular protest and political participation in the Ottoman Empire: Studies in honor of Suraiya Faroqhi (co-edited with M.E. Kabadayı and C.K. Neumann). Istanbul: Bilgi University Press.  Articles– Book chapters (selection) 2012 “Patterns of collective action and political participation in the early modern Balkans”. In A. Anastasopoulos (ed.), Political initiatives ‘from the bottom up’ in the Ottoman Empire, [Halcyon Days in Crete VII], Rethymno: Crete University Press 399-433. 2011 “Popular protest and the limitations of sultanic justice”. In E. Gara, M.E. Kabadayı and C.K. Neumann (eds.), Popular protest and political participation in the Ottoman Empire: Studies in honor of Suraiya, Istanbul: Bilgi University Press: 89-104. 2010 “Partiality in the administration of justice at the Ottoman kadi courts”. In K. Lappas, A. Anastasopoulos and E. Kolovos (eds.), Mneme Penelopes Stathe, Iraklio: Crete University Press,  39-54 (in Greek). 2009 “In search of a new image of the Ottoman Empire: Recent revisions of Ottoman history, their successes and limitations” (in Greek). Introduction to the Greek edition of S. Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the world around it, Athens: Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Protou, 17-41 (in Greek). 2008 “Ottoman social history: Trends of research and the issue of reflexivity”. In Ph. Tsimpiridou and D. Stamatopoulos (eds.), Orientalismos sta oria: Apo ta othomanika Balkania ste synchrone Mese Anatole, Athens: Kritike, 99-124 (in Greek 2007 “Marrying in seventeenth century Mostar”. In E. Kolovos, Ph. Kotzageorgis, S. Laiou and M. Sariyannis (eds.), The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, the Greek lands, Istanbul: The Isis Press, , 115-134. 2005/06 “Neomartyr without a message”. Archivum Ottomanicum 23, 155-175. 2005 “Christians and Muslims in the early modern Ottoman Empire: Historiographical approaches” (in Greek). Introduction to the Greek edition of M. Greene, A shared world, Athens: Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Protou, 2005, 15-37. 2005 “Moneylenders and landowners: In search of urban Muslim elites in the early modern Balkans”. In A. Anastasopoulos (ed.), Provincial elites in the Ottoman Empire, Rethymno: Crete University Press, 135-147. 2005 “Çuha for the janissaries – Velençe for the poor: Competition for raw material and work-force between Salonica and Veria, 1600-1650”. In S. Faroqhi and R. Deguilhem (eds.), Crafts and craftsmen of the Middle East: Fashioning the individual in the Muslim Mediterranean, London–New York: I.B. Tauris, 121-152. 1999 “Ottoman attitudes on crime and punishment” (with A. Anastasopoulos, in Greek). Mnemon 21, 37-54. 1998 “In search of communities in seventeenth-century Ottoman sources: The case of the Kara Ferye district”. Turcica 30, 135-162 )