October 7, 2026 - January 20, 2026, 5PM - 6:30PM, Hybride Event, Campus of the University of Vienna, Institute's Auditorium

 October 7, 2026 - January 20, 2026, 5PM - 6:30PM, Hybride Event, Campus of the University of Vienna, Institute's Auditorium

The lecture series will explore food and drink cultures across Eurasia as a particularly productive field for studying historical transformation, circulation, and connectivity. Food is not merely a matter of subsistence or taste: it provides a lens through which social hierarchies, religious norms, ecological conditions, imperial formations, commercial networks, and cultural identities become visible. Bringing together perspectives from history, anthropology, religious studies, literary and manuscript studies, and material culture studies, the series will examine the circulation of ingredients, recipes, culinary techniques, and dietary knowledge; the effects of trade, migration, pilgrimage, and empire on food cultures; and the relationship between consumption, religion, ritual, identity, and social distinction. Particular attention will be given to comparative and connective approaches and to the ways in which culinary practices crossed linguistic, confessional, and imperial boundaries.

Zoom-Link: https://univienna.zoom.us/j/68400618752?pwd=whFyPtF7zrxcJwT3ZGaDslKNo1BMgd.1

Programme 

07.10.2026
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (IMAFO, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
New Tastes for the New Rome: expanding circulations and consumptions of rice, sugar and citrus fruits in the Byzantine Middle Ages (Abstract & Bio)

14.10.2026
Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware) - online via Zoom only
Shah ‘Abbas I and Wine: Between Indulgence, Repentance, and Proscription (Abstract & Bio)

28.10.2026
Joanita Vroom (Leiden University)
Sherbet for the Sultan: Searching for Wining and Dining in Ottoman Istanbul (Abstract & Bio)

04.11.2026
Avinoam Stillman (University of Vienna)
Mystical Meals in Ottoman Safed: Isaac Luria and the Kabbalah of Food (Abstract & Bio)

11.11.2026
Yavuz Köse (University of Vienna)
Recipes across Scripts: Rethinking the Genealogy of Ottoman Cookbooks (Abstract & Bio)

18.11.2026
Borayin Larios (University of Vienna)
Eating for the Nation: Gastropolitics and the Making of the Ideal Citizen in Contemporary India (Abstract & Bio)

25.11.2026
Aliya Bolatkhan (University of Zurich)
How Beshbarmak became a fact: food, knowledge, and institutions across Imperial and Soviet Eurasia (Abstract & Bio)

02.12.2026
Stephan Procházka (University of Vienna)
Food and Cookbooks in Abbasid Period (Abstract & Bio)

09.12.2026
Naoíse Mac Sweeney (University of Vienna
In vino veritas? Social drinking in ancient Anatolia and beyond (Abstract & Bio)

16.12.2026
Katharina Ivanyi (University of Vienna)
How Muslim jurists saw the world: What Islamic dietary law can tell us about animal taxonomies and fiqh as a classificatory enterprise (Abstract & Bio)

13.01.2027
Brett Wilson (Central European University)
Coffee in Modern Turkey: Ottoman Legacies and National Cuisine (Abstract & Bio)

20.01.2027
Maren Möhring (Leipzig University) - online via Zoom only
The Döner as a global product (Abstract & Bio)

Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.

Weekly: univienna.zoom.us/meeting/u5wpd-murzMtH9Zt1cCAKVWX5HLviSjIh6Ep/ics