Critical Coffee Reading (peer-to-peer learning network)
A cezve (coffee pot) begins to rumble on a stove. Anticipating the bubbling of the froth, a person stirs the molten brown liquid and quickly pours it in two small cups placed on matching decorated saucers. Once drunk, the saucers are placed on the cup and the drinker holds both above their head, rotating three times, then flipping the cup and saucer upside down. Cypriots elders have been reading and interpreting the coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup to make sense of the past, present, and future. Much like this tradition, can we read and interpret the anthropological writings on Cyprus to make sense of our past, present, and future?
Critical Coffee Reading is a reading and research group founded in 2024 by Florenza Deniz Incirli and I. Currently, we organise monthly virtual reading sessions, where we sip Cypriot coffee and discuss what it means to write and read Cyprus today. We consider a social scientific text each session, using it as a prompt to think through questions about identity, geopolitics and history in Cyprus and in the region. We aim to gather and nourish a community of local and international researchers and individuals to discuss how Cyprus has been delineated in anthropology and beyond. In 2025, we will be diversifying our portfolio of events beyond reading sessions. In the upcoming years, we will be expanding the network to engage with other coffee-reading cultures beyond Cyprus.
