Ahmad Al-Jallad is a philologist, epigraphist, and historian of language. His work focuses on the languages, writing systems, history, and cultures of pre-Islamic Arabia and the ancient Near East.
The past several years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of documented Paleo-Arabic inscriptions from the Ḥigāz,…
The American University of Beirut (AUB) has long served as a hub of Arab national and cultural identity. Throughout the twentieth century, scores of Middle Eastern politicians and intellectuals graduated from its halls. This talk explores AUB’s little-known Jewish and Zionist history. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Jews formed about ten…
The Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies presents, “Palestine is/as a Feminist Issue”.
Join this urgently needed discussion moderated by Visiting Faculty Dr. Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Program Director Dr Shamus Khan. Panelists include renowned scholar-activists Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, Dr. Zillah Eisenstein, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, and…
- Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi
- Dr. Zillah Eisenstein
- Dr. Marc Lamont Hill
- Mahdi Sabbagh
This talk examines the social history of oriental carpets, particularly the production and circulation of carpets by Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and beyond. It discusses the central role of mass violence against Armenians in the creation of the labor market for the production of carpets in the late Ottoman Empire. It brings…
Dr. Raha Rafii received her PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. She specializes in Islamic jurisprudence and Arabic philology, and has also written on Orientalism in Islamic art museum exhibitions, manuscript acquisition, and the ethics of digitization. She is a lecturer…
Reyhan Durmaz is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the cultural history of Christianity in the medieval Middle East. Her first book, Stories between Christianity and Islam (2022) examines the transmissions of saints’ stories between Christian and Muslim…
'The Forest of the Witch' is a traditional Anatolian shadow theatre performance. It has been adapted from the 19th-century text "Bloody Poplar" with a contemporary interpretation, and the play centers around a universal theme. Karagöz, who cuts down a tree growing…
Betty Rosen earned her Ph.D. in Arabic and Hebrew Literature from the University of California-Berkeley’s Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and Program in Critical Theory in 2023. She also holds an MA in Arabic Literature from SOAS University of London and an A.B. in Comparative Literature from Harvard College. Her…
George A. Kiraz is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Study, teaches Syriac at Princeton University, and is the director of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. He has written extensively on Syriac studies, computational linguistics, and the digital humanities.
The Cairo Genizah, a treasure trove of…
Women’s associations (hevrot) tended to the sick, clothed the needy, dowered indigent brides, and perhaps most prominently, prepared the dead for burial. These sororities provided women with a formal communal setting in which they could express leadership, independent management and piety. The enterprise and efficiency women…
Associate Professor of History & Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies
Department of History