Class Day 2024
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Shane Patrick, “A Law of the Past and of the Future: The Mukhtaṣar al-Sharīʿa of ʿAbdallāh Qarāʿalī”
Near Eastern Studies Department Prize for an Outstanding Senior Thesis
Sam Kagan, “קול העם” כל העם בThe Quest to Define Expression Protections and National Ethos in Early Israeli Jurisprudence”
Program in Near Eastern Studies Senior Thesis Prize
Abigail Glickman, “Text and Textile: Reading Clothing in Cairo Geniza Society and Scholarship”
Department of Near Eastern Studies Prize for Best Junior Paper
Jonathan Rosenberg ‘25, “Tehran to Tirana: The Development of the Mojahedin-e Khalq’s Attitudes Towards the United States”
Ertegün Foundation Thesis Prize for best senior thesis in Ottoman, Turkish, or Turkic Studies
Martin Mastnak ‘25, “Music, Cityscape, and De-Ottomanization in post-Ottoman Belgrade”
Near Eastern Studies Senior Language Prize for overall achievement in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish
Abigail Glickman
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for outstanding progress and dedication to the Arabic language
Charlotte Young ‘27
Class Day 2023
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Zev Mishell, “‘Kahana Tzadak’: The Rise of the Israeli Far Right and the Legacy of Rabbi Meir Kahane”
Program in Near Eastern Studies Senior Thesis Prize
Isaac Wills, “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition: Protest, Petition, and Prison in British South Africa, 1875-1906”
Department of Near Eastern Studies Prize for Best Junior Paper
Shane Patrick ’24, “Chalcedon and the Sultan: Ayyubid Sultanic Engagement with Coptic Christology in the Life of Cyril III ibn Lala”
Department of Near Eastern Studies Prize for Best Junior Paper Honorable Mentions
Sam Kagan ’24, “‘Kadima, Kadima B’Speed!’: Narratives of Palestinian Exclusion, Zionist Triumph, and Mechanical Failure aboard Haifa’s Carmelit Funicular (1900–2023)”
Rebecca Roth ’24, “Taliban Poetry: An Insight into the Militant Mindset?”
T. Cuyler Young Award for Iranian Studies
Delaney Savidge ’24, “Agentively and the Morpho-syntax Interface: The Structure of -gar Nominals in Farsi.”
Near Eastern Studies Senior Language Prize for overall achievement in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish
Yusuf Kocaman
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for outstanding progress and dedication to the Arabic language
Yonah Berenson '25
Class Day 2022
Department of Near Eastern Studies Prize for best junior paper
Zev Mishell '23, "Rebel Rabbis: The Radical Political Theologies of Joel Teitelbaum and Elmer Berger"
Near Eastern Studies Senior Language Prize for overall achievement in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish
Ethan Kahn '22
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for outstanding progress and dedication to the Arabic language
Ilia Curto Pelle ''22
Class Day 2021
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Grace Masback, “Four Letters, Three Languages, Two Continents, One Network:The Sephardic Trade Diaspora in the 18th Century Ottoman Empire”
Near Eastern Studies Department Prize for an Outstanding Senior Thesis
Haeley Ahn, “Al-Shidyaq’s Women: Performing a “Gendered Reading” of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s al-Saq ʿala al-Saq (Leg over Leg)”
T. Cuyler Young Award for Iranian Studies
Tara Shirazi, “Land Reform as the Catalyst for Modernization in Pahlavi Iran: The Case of Khuzestan"
Ertegün Foundation Thesis Prize for best senior thesis in Ottoman, Turkish, or Turkic Studies
Haeley Ahn, “Al-Shidyaq’s Women: Performing a “Gendered Reading” of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s al-Saq ʿala al-Saq (Leg over Leg)”
Department of Near Eastern Studies Prize for best junior paper
Youssef Abdallah '22, “Muslim Women and Sports in Islamic Societies”
Near Eastern Studies Senior Language Prize for overall achievement in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish
Alexandra Veyne
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for outstanding progress and dedication to the Arabic language
Meredith Gallagher '24
Class Day 2020
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Samuel Prentice, “Allegory and Representation in the Persianate Early Modern”
Near Eastern Studies Department Prize for an Outstanding Senior Thesis
Sarah Gordon, “Governing before the Apocalypse: Ideological Flexibility in the Political Strategy of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”
T. Cuyler Young Award for Iranian Studies
Samuel Prentice, “Allegory and Representation in the Persianate Early Modern”
F. O. Kelsey Prize for Best Junior Paper
Grace Masback '21, “Avraham Mayo’s Egypt in the Age of Exploration”
Near Eastern Studies Senior Language Prize for Overall Achievement in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish
Zachary Bampton
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for Outstanding Progress and Dedication to the Arabic language
Hannah Smalley '21
Class Day 2019
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Noah Hastings, “Chasing Splendid Eccentrics: Robert Hamilton, Khirbat al-Mafjar, and Islamic Archaeology”
Near Eastern Studies Department Prize for an Outstanding Senior Thesis
Sophie Evans, “The Literariness of Political Texts”
T. Cuyler Young Award for Iranian Studies
Mohammad Adnan, “Limbs”
F. O. Kelsey Prize for Best Junior Paper
Sammy Prentice '20, “A Surging Blackness: Ashraf Māzandarānī’s Vision of India”
Near Eastern Studies Senior Language Prize for Overall Achievement in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish
Nicky Don
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for Outstanding Progress and Dedication to the Arabic language
Yu Jeong Lee '22
Class Day 2018
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Katie Tyler, “Widespread Literacy in Tuareg and Mangyan Indigenous Communities: The Roles of Writing, Pedagogy, and Institutional Interventions”
Near Eastern Studies Department Prize for an Outstanding Senior Thesis
Nick Jonsson, “From Zaydi Revival to the Gates of Power: The Huthi Movement of Yemen”
Talya Nevins, “Interpreters and Ideals: How US Immigration Policy Failed Afghan Translators”
T. Cuyler Young Award for Iranian Studies
Jeremy Rotblat, “Messiahs in Memory, Prophets in Poetry: Resituating the Roshaniyya Movement in the Sixteenth-Century Millenarian Milieu”
Ertegün Foundation Thesis Prize for best senior thesis in Ottoman, Turkish, or Turkic Studies
Emma Claire Jones, “Bukhara in Construction: Building the Past and Future in Early Soviet Bukhara”
F. O. Kelsey Prize for best junior paper
Noreen Andersen '19, “Reforming Views on Zionism and the Internet: Revealing How the Haredim Have Been Misclassified as Fundamentalist”
Near Eastern Studies Senior Language Prize for overall achievement in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish
Nick Jonsson
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for outstanding progress and dedication to the Arabic language
Marina Cooper '21
Class Day 2017
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Preston Lim, “Keeping Aphrodite’s Island: The Evolution of British Counter-Insurgency during the Cyprus Revolt of 1955–1959”
Near Eastern Studies Department Prize for an Outstanding Senior Thesis
Alice Catanzaro, “Internet Fatwahs and Cyber Shaykhs: The Effects of Internet Islam on Notions of Scholarly Authority in Morocco”
Hammad Aslam, “The Federated Khanate: Development of Baloch Sub-Nationalist Conflict in Pakistan 1947–1958"
T. Cuyler Young Award for Iranian Studies
Emma Jones '18, ”Towards an Islamic City?: An Investigation of the Urban Development of Bukhara in the Early Islamic Period”
Ertegün Foundation Thesis Prize for best senior thesis in Ottoman, Turkish, or Turkic Studies
Preston Lim, “Keeping Aphrodite’s Island: The Evolution of British Counter-Insurgency during the Cyprus Revolt of 1955–1959”
F. O. Kelsey Prize for best junior paper
Katie Tyler '18, “The 1960 Agadir Earthquake: A Case Study of Disappearing Jewish Communities in Morocco”
Nick Jonsson, “After Hama: Tracing the Ideology, Rhetoric and Strategy of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, 1963–1984”
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for outstanding progress and dedication to the Arabic language
Sandy Ra '19
Class Day 2016
Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Thesis Prize
Jasmine Robinson, “Islamist Perspectives: Morocco’s Family Law Reform Movement”
T. Cuyler Young Award for Iranian Studies
Jeremy Rotblat '18, “‘He Who Knows his Soul’s True Source’: Reclaiming Nizami’s Haft Paykar as a ‘Spiritual Romance’”
F. O. Kelsey Prize for best second term junior paper
Preston Lim '17, “The Prickly Thorn: A Re-evaluation of Orde Wingate and the Special Night Squads”
Judith Laffan Memorial Prize for outstanding progress and dedication to the Arabic language
Sarah Sakha '18