Middle East Beyond Borders Graduate Student Workshop
Academic Year 2025-2026
Faculty Advisers:
Prof. Malika Zeghal, mzeghal@fas.harvard.edu
Prof. Adam Mestyan, mestyan@fas.harvard.edu
Graduate Student Coordinator:
Abtsam Saleh, asaleh@g.harvard.edu
Shaharyar Zia, szia@fas.harvard.edu
The Middle East Beyond Borders (MEBB) workshop aims to foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars working on the past and present of the Middle East. It takes as its founding premise the idea that the “Middle East” as an object of inquiry must fundamentally engage notions of boundaries, mobility, and transformation. Our goal is to offer a platform for collaboration and discussion to all Middle East scholars at Harvard across a wide range of academic fields and disciplines. To date, our community has welcomed scholars from NELC, History, Middle Eastern Studies, Anthropology, the Study of Religion, Law, Art and Architecture, and more. During meetings, we typically workshop a polished dissertation chapter or prospectuses from graduate student.
Location: Barker 403
Spring 2026
Fall 2025
Spring 2025 schedule:
February 3: Ian VanderMeulen (Brandeis University), "Microphonic Audition: Vocal Inscription and Technologized Listening in Qur'anic Recording.” Laura Thompson (Harvard University) will respond.
February 24: Youssef Ben Ismail (Amherst College), “Autonomous Subjects: Genealogies of Equality and Difference in the Late Ottoman Empire.” Aimee Gennell (Boston University) will respond.
March 24: Mary Elston (Harvard University),"The Islamic Tradition in Modern Times: al-Azhar Scholars on Turāth and Manhaj.” Angela Giordani (Columbia University) will respond.
April 1: Professor M. Qasim Zaman (Princeton University), TBD.
April 14: Latifeh Aavani (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:
Johannes Makar (PhD Candidate, NELC): “Coptic Intellectuals and the Transformation of the Public Sphere under Khedive Ismā'īl,” September 23rd, 2024.
Laura Thompson (PhD, Committee on the Study of Religion): “Sabb al-Jalāla: Insulting the Majesty of God in Contemporary Tunisian Courtrooms,” October 21st, 2024.
Nicholas Pantelick (AB/AM Candidate, NELC): “Haphazard Hasbara? An Analysis of the Factors Shaping Contemporary Israeli Public Diplomacy,” October 28th, 2024.
Armaan Siddiqi (PhD, NELC): “Navigating the Hajj: A fatwā for the Sultan and the Intersection of Law and Statecraft in 19th Century Morocco,” November 11th, 2024.
PAST EVENTS:
Fall 2020 meetings:
September 21: Youssef Ben Ismail (PhD Candidate, NELC)
Dissertation Chapter, "'Who protects Tunis?' The many meanings of protection in the nineteenth-century Mediterranean (1830-1881)"
October 5: Laura Thompson (PhD Candidate, Committee on the Study of Religion)
Dissertation Chapter, “Sacred Freedoms, Sacred Faith: Al Muqaddasat in Post- Arab Spring Tunisia (2011-2013)”
October 19: Kenan Tekin (Visiting Fellow, NELC)
Book Chapter, "Conception of Science in the Commentaries and Glosses on the Prolegomenon of Kātibī’s Shamsiyya"
November 2: Chloe Bordewich (PhD Candidate, History and Middle Eastern Studies)
Dissertation Chapter, "Information at War: Rumor, News, and Silence in Egypt’s East African Empire"
November 16: Mohamed R. Abdelsalam (PhD Candidate, Sciences Po Law School, Former Visiting Fellow in Religion)
Dissertation Chapter, "Judicialization of Religion"
November 30: Shireen Hamza (PhD Candidate, History of Science)
Dissertation Chapter, "How Islamic is Islamic Medicine? Text and the Body in Tibb"
**************************
Spring 2021 Meetings
February 1: Ari Schriber (PhD Candidate, NELC), Dissertation Chapter, "Paternity Claim, Lineage, and Slavery: Adjudicating Istilḥāq in Colonial Moroccan Sharī'a Courts"
February 8: Chloe Bordewich (PhD Candidate, HMES), Dissertation Chapter, "Information at War: Rumor, News, and Silence in Egypt’s East African Empire”
February 22: Mary Elston (Visiting Fellow, HLS Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World), Journal Article, "Becoming Turāth: Tradition in Modern Egypt”
March 8: Hassaan Shahawy (JD Candidate, HLS; PhD in Islamic Law, Oxford), Book Chapter, "Fake Hanafis and Radical Basrans in 9th Century Iraq”
March 22: Daria Kovaleva (PhD Candidate, HMES), Dissertation Chapter, “Oral Drama in Early Modern Istanbul: Poetics of Improvisation and Impression”
April 5: *PROSPECTUS DAY* 1. Timothy Loh (PhD Candidate, HASTS, MIT) + 2. TBA
April 19: Caroline Kahlenberg (PhD Candidate, HMES), Dissertation Chapter, “Age, Race, and Jewish Terrorism on Trial in Mandatory Palestine: The Case of Rachel Habshush”