For the Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor House Fellowship Programme, the Dahlem Humanities Center and the Centrum Modernes Griechenland at Freie Universität Berlin collaborate with the Benaki Museum in Athens.
The program is a cooperative project between the Benaki Museum and Freie Universität Berlin (Centrum Modernes Griechenland / Dahlem Humanities Center), Princeton University (Stanley J. Seeger ’52 Center for Hellenic Studies), and the University of California Los Angeles (Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture).
Each academic year, these universities select two scholars each to be in residence at the former home of Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor in Kardamily, Greece, to work on their writing projects.
Patrick Leigh Fermor was a British writer who was best known for his travel writing; his wife Joan was a photographer. During WWII, John Leigh Fermor served as a Major in the British Special Operations Executive. In 1944, he landed in German-occupied Crete and together with members of the local Greek resistance, kidnapped German Major-General Heinrich Kreipe. Leigh Fermor later described the events of the kidnapping in his (posthumously published) Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete. Following the war, John and Joan Leigh Fermor traveled widely in Greece before they decided to build a house in Kardamily in the southern Peloponnes. In 1996, the couple donated their beautiful home to the Benaki Museum on the understanding that it would serve scholars and intellectuals as a place for inspiring work.
Leigh Fermor Fellows Spring 2025
Leigh Fermor Fellows Fall 2024
Leigh Fermor Fellows Spring 2024
Leigh Fermor Fellows Fall 2023
