Assistant Professor Jonathan Marc Gribetz’s new book, Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter, has been published by Princeton University Press. “Courageous and deeply compelling, Defining Neighbors is a landmark book that fundamentally recasts our understanding of the modern Jewish-Arab…
The Board of the Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation has made a gift of $250,000 to Near Eastern Studies in memory of Robert Garrett ’59. Garrett, who passed away on March 12, 2014, had for many years been the chairman of the Near Eastern Studies Advisory Council and had served for over 33 years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Cleveland…
Eric S. Lob (Ph.D. 2013) has won the 2013–14 Best Ph.D. Dissertation of the Year on a Topic of Iranian Studies Award of the Foundation for Iranian Studies. Lob’s dissertation, “An Institutional History of the Iranian Construction Jihad: From Inception to Institutionalization (1979-2011),” was supervised by Mirjam Künkler and is the first…
Amaney Jamal, who is an associated faculty member of Near Eastern Studies, has been named the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics, effective July 1, 2014. Jamal has published four books: Barriers to Democracy (2007), which won the 2008 Best Book Award in Comparative Democratization at the American Political Science Association; …
Eric Lob (Ph.D. 2013) was awarded an Honorable Mention by the International Society for Iranian Studies in the Mehrdad Mashayekhi Dissertation Award competition. Lob’s doctoral dissertation, “An Institutional History of the Iranian Construction Jihad” (2013), was supervised by Mirjam Künkler and is based on an impressive diversity of original…
Graduate student Simon Wolfgang Fuchs was awarded one of three European Association for South Asian Studies Research Student Awards at the 23rd meeting of the organization held July 23–26, 2014, at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). The awards are given for the “most outstanding papers by currently registered research students presenting…
The Department and Program of Near Eastern Studies mourns the passing of our friend and colleague, Dr. Judith Laffan. Judy was a valued member of the Arabic Language instructional team since September 2011.
Judy completed her Ph.D. at University of Queensland in July, 2011, and shortly after began teaching Arabic with us. She…
Max Weiss has been promoted to associate professor and granted tenure by the University. Weiss, who has a joint appointment in Near Eastern Studies and History, specializes in the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the modern Middle East. His research interests include transformations of law and society, religious culture, history of…
Michael A. Cook, Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies, received the Holberg Prize from Norway’s HRH Crown Prince Haakon and Monica Mæland, Minister of Trade and Industry, at a ceremony held at Håkonshallen, Bergenhus Festning, Bergen, Norway, on June 4, 2014. The ceremony and Cook’s acceptance speech may be viewed at:
NES held its 2014 Class Day Reception on June 2 in 1915 Hall. At the reception, the Department and Program presented this year’s prize winners and announced departmental honors. Nadirah Mansour received Highest Honors and also won the Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize …