The Middle East Beyond Borders
The Middle East Beyond Borders Graduate Workshop, which is currently co-led by Professor Adam Mestyan and Professor Malika Zeghal, started in 2012-2013. In it, PhD students discuss their peers’ drafts dissertation chapters, which are read in advance by all participants. Dissertation prospectuses can also be presented and discussed. Students from NELC, Religion, Anthropology, History, History of Science, and Comparative Literature, to cite only a few departments, have presented their work and received important feedback.
Fall 2025 Schedule
September 22, 2025: Omar Abdel Ghaffar (PhD candidate, HMES/JD’25)
“Canonizing Assent: Legal Canons in Action in late Medieval Jerusalem.” Respondent: Saaleh Baseer (PhD candidate, HMES).
October 20, 2025: Houssem Chachia (Shawwaf Visiting Professor, NELC)
“The Conquest of Tunis (1535): Memory, Defeat, and Celebration Across Cultures.” Respondent: Professor Jessica Marglin (Visiting Professor, NELC).
November 3, 2025: Ozkan Karabulut (PhD Candidate, HMES)
"Scripturalization of the Alevi Mystical Poetry.” Respondent: Sarah Aziz (PhD candidate, NELC).
November 17, 2025: Cem Turkoz (PhD Candidate, NELC)
“Ottoman Natural Philosophy in Seventeenth-Century Context: The Evolution of the Canon.” Respondent: Efe Balıkçıoğlu (Associate, CMES).
Spring 2025 Schedule
February 3, 2025: Ian VanderMeulen (Brandeis University)
"Microphonic Audition: Vocal Inscription and Technologized Listening in Qur'anic Recording.” Respondent: Laura Thompson (Harvard University).
February 24, 2025: Youssef Ben Ismail (Amherst College)
“Autonomous Subjects: Genealogies of Equality and Difference in the Late Ottoman Empire.” Respondent: Aimee Gennell (Boston University).
March 24, 2025: Mary Elston (PhD, Harvard University)
"The Islamic Tradition in Modern Times: al-Azhar Scholars on Turāth and Manhaj.” Angela Giordani (Columbia University) will respond.
April 1, 2025: Professor M. Qasim Zaman (Professor, Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University)
"Law and Sufism in Modern South Asia."
April 14, 2025: Latifeh Aavani (PhD, Harvard University)
“The Global Codification Movement and the Development of Legal Reforms in 19th-Century Iran.” Abtsam Saleh (Harvard University) will respond.
Fall 2024 Schedule
October 21, 2024: Laura Thompson (PhD, CSR)
“Sabb al-Jalāla: Insulting the Majesty of God in Contemporary Tunisian Courtrooms.” Respondent: Arwa Labidi (Harvard University).
October 28, 2024: Nicholas Pantelick (AB/AM Candidate, NELC)
“Haphazard Hasbara? An Analysis of the Factors Shaping Contemporary Israeli Public Diplomacy." Respondent: Andrew O'Donahue (PhD candidate, Government, Harvard University).
November 11, 2024: Armaan Siddiqi (PhD, NELC)
“Navigating the Hajj: A fatwā for the Sultan and the Intersection of Law and Statecraft in 19th Century Morocco.” Respondent: Nicholas Judt (PhD candidate, CSR, Harvard University).
Spring 2024 Schedule
February 26, 2024: Mitch Bacci (PhD candidate, History)
"Pernicious Protégés and Foreign Foils: Foreign Subalterns and the Informal Economy in Egypt, 1922-1937." Respondent: Francesco Anselmetti (PhD candidate, History)
March 18, 2024: Iman Darwish (PhD candidate, History of Science)
"Scientific Methodology in Arabic Materia Medica." Respondent: Mohamed Koutajian (PhD candidate, Comparative Literature)
April 1, 2024: Mary Elston (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, PhD 2020, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)
"Language Reform and the Turāth revival." Respondent: Omar Abdel-Ghaffar, (Harvard Law School and PhD candidate, History).
Fall 2023 Schedule
September 18, 2023, Mahdi Chowdhury (PhD candidate, History)
"World-Making after the Ottoman Empire: World Islamic Conferences and Experiments in Muslim Universalism, 1926-1934." Respondent: Francesco Anselmetti (PhD candidate, History)
October 2, 2023, Catey Boyle (PhD candidate, History)
"Constructing a Lexicon of Subjection: Examining Tunisian and European discourse on Blackness and slavery, 1741-1891." Respondent: Omar Abdel-Ghaffar (PhD candidate, History)
October 16, Phoebe Carter (PhD candidate, comparative literature)
"Ambivalence and Solidarity in the 19th-century Global South: The Brazilian Rihla of Imam Abd al-Rahman al-Baghdadi" Respondent: Ozzy Gunduz (PhD candidate, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)
October 30, Johannes Makar (PhD candidate, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)
“History as a Preface: The Idea of the Nahḍa in Early Coptic Historiography.” Respondent: Phoebe Carter (PhD candidate, Comparative Literature)
November 13, Lucy Ballard (PhD candidate, Religion)
"Feeling Islam in Detroit City: Prophetic Neighborliness and the Making of a “Real” Islamic Place." Respondent: Saaleh Baseer (PhD Candidate, History)
In Memoriam: A Middle East Beyond Borders Special Session in Honor of Kathryn Schwartz (1984-2022). (April 24, 2023)
For a review of Kathryn Schwartz's work, see Blair, A. & Zeghal, M. "Kathryn Schwartz, Book Historian of the Modern Middle East." Review of Middle East Studies, 57(2), 2024, pp. 202-209. doi:10.1017/rms.2024.30
1-Malika Zeghal, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor at Harvard University: Introductory Remarks
2-Ann Blair, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University: From a Graduate Exam Reading List to a Great Article: on ‘Did Ottoman Sultans Ban Print?’
3-Ahmed El Shamsy, Professor of Islamic Thought at the University of Chicago (via Zoom): Arab Bibliophilia meets Orientalism: on ‘An Eastern Scholar’s Engagement with the European Study of the East.'
4-Chloé Bordewich, Public History Post-doctoral Associate at Boston University and an alumna of the workshop (via Zoom): Rethinking Egypt in the 1870s through ‘The Political Economy of Private Printing in Cairo.'
5-Ari Schriber, Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto and an alumnus of the workshop (via Zoom): The Introspection of Kathryn Schwartz: Printed Word as the Historian's Vocation (on ‘Book History, Print, and the Middle East’).
6-Youssef Ben Ismail, Fellow at the Society of Fellows, Columbia University and an alumnus of the MEBB (via Zoom): Ottoman Legal Pluralism and Extra-Territoriality in ‘A Printer’s Old Plea to Reform Legal Pluralism in Khedivial Egypt.’
7-Mary Elston, Alwaleed Bin Talal Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Studies at Harvard University, and an alumna of the MEBB: Kathryn’s Bookends: From ‘Charting Arabic Cryptology’s Evolution’ to ‘The Official Urge to Simplify Arabic Printing.’
8-Adam Mestyan, Associate Professor of History at Duke University: An Egyptian Shaykh’s Literary World: Digitally Reconstructing Islamic Print Culture Through Mustafa Salama al-Najjari’s Books, Cairo 1870
Spring 2023 Schedule
February 6, 2023 Armaan Siddiqi (PhD Candidate, NELC)
"Exchange: Defending the Scope of Prophetic Knowledge in 20th century Ḥijāz." Respondent: Ozzy Gunduz (PhD Candidate, NELC)
February 13, 2023 Ozzy Gunduz (PhD Candidate, NELC)
"A City and its Poetics: A Rūmī Poet in Damascus." Respondent: Mohammed Koutajian (PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature)
February 27, 2023 Yosra Amraoui (Ben Gacem Post-doctoral fellow)
Book project: On Trauma and Carcerality in the MENA Region: A Study of Selected Prison Narratives. Respondent: Christopher Malley (PhD Candidate, History)
March 6, 2023 Omar Abdel-Ghaffar (PhD Candidate, History)
"Documenting Descriptions." Respondent: Mahmoud Abdelrahman (PhD Candidate, History)
April 10, 2023 Latifeh Aavani (PhD Candidate, Religion)
"There is No Law but God’s Law: The Legal Reasoning of the Jurists Against Modern Legislation." Respondent: Omar Abdel-Ghaffar (PhD Candidate, History)