Faculty News

Freer Medal

Freer Medal Lecture and Award Ceremony: Honoring Gülru Necipoğlu

October 26, 2023

On Friday, October 27, 2023, the National Museum of Asian Art awards its Freer Medal, a lifetime achievement award that honors individuals who have made substantial contributions to the understanding of the arts of Asia throughout their career, to Gülru Necipoğlu, the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University’s History of Art and Architecture Department, who will be honored for her lifetime work in the arts of the Islamic world....

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Everett Mendelsohn

Everett Mendelsohn, Who Linked Science and Society, Dies at 91

July 15, 2023

Everett Mendelsohn, who as a scholar of the history of science explored how science's evolution has been influenced by historical and cultural trends and vice versa, died on June 6, 2023, at his home in Cambridge. He was 91. A longtime professor at Harvard, Mendelsohn lectured on atom bombs, genetics, and more, examining how science, culture, and politics influence one another. Read more about Mendelsohn's remarkable life and career in the New York Times.

National Museum of Asian Art Announces Gülru Necipoğlu as Recipient of 2023 Freer Medal

National Museum of Asian Art Announces Gülru Necipoğlu as Recipient of 2023 Freer Medal

January 3, 2023

The National Museum of Asian Art has announced its 2023 recipients of the Freer Medal, a lifetime achievement award that honors individuals who have substantially contributed to the understanding of the arts of Asia throughout their career. This year, the institution’s centennial, the honor will go to Vidya Dehejia, the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor Emerita of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University, and Gülru Necipoğlu, the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic...

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Herbert Kelman

Professor Herbert C. Kelman, A Life

September 30, 2022

On September 16, at the Memorial Church of Harvard University, a memorial service was held for Herbert C. Kelman, whose 54 year career at Harvard, most recently as the Richard Clarke Cabot Research Professor of Social Ethics, came to a close when Kelman passed away peacefully on March 1 at age 94. One of the speakers at the memorial was CMES alumnus Philip S. Khoury (History and Middle East Studies PhD '80), Ford International Professor of History and Associate Provost at MIT, who delivered the following tribute to his long-time friend.

I knew Herb Kelman for more...

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William Granara Retires after Twenty-Nine Years at Harvard

William Granara Retires after Twenty-Nine Years at Harvard

July 14, 2022

William Granara, Professor of the Practice of Arabic on the Gordon Gray Endowment, Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Director of the Modern Languages Program in his own Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and a member of the Department of Comparative Literature, retired June 30, 2022, after twenty-nine years serving Harvard University in a variety of capacities. His colleagues in Islamic studies who are spread throughout many departments and faculties at Harvard, the staff with whom he has worked at CMES for nine years, and the many undergraduate and...

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Ahmad Mahdavi Damghani, William Graham, William Granara 2012

Roy Mottahedeh Remembers Ahmad Mahdavi Damghani

July 7, 2022

Professor Ahmad Mahdavi Damghani, who taught part-time as an associate at Harvard University from 1987 to 2014, died on June 17, 2022 (13th of Shahrivar, 1305). He was born on September 5, 1926, in the shrine city of Mashhad, where his father, Ayatollah Shaykh Muhammad Kazim Damghani, was a distinguished cleric. He pursued both a secular and a Shi‘ite clerical education in the schools of Mashhad. Afterwards he studied at the University of Tehran, where he received a PhD in Islamic theology and in Persian literature. Subsequently, he was appointed Professor in that university, both in the...

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Inaugural Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law and Policy Program at HLS, 11/9/21

$10 Million Endowment Established for the Harvard Law School Animal Law and Policy Program

November 10, 2021

Harvard Law School today announced the establishment of a $10 million endowment for the Animal Law and Policy Program, thanks to a gift from the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy. CMES PhD alum and faculty affiliate Kristen Stilt, Professor of Law at HLS, is Faculty Director of the Animal Law and Policy Program, in addition to her role as Director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program at HLS. Read more about the program, the Brooks Insititute, and the new endowment in...

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Rabb

Intisar Rabb Has Been Appointed Special Adviser to ICC Prosecutor

September 28, 2021

Harvard Law School Professor and Center for Middle Eastern Studies Steering Committee member Intisar Rabb was named as one of 17 special advisers to the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim A.A. Khan. The faculty director of the Program in Islamic Law at Harvard Law School, Rabb was appointed as a special adviser on Islamic Law. Rabb joins HLS alum Payam Akhavan and 15 others as special advisers to the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court....

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