After the Egyptian army lost the 1948 war to Israel, a popular narrative — that the monarchy sold out its soldiers — paved the way for the successful July Revolution four years later. CMES alum Chloe Bordewich (History and MES PhD '22) explores the history behind the narrative in an article in New Line magazine .

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...

In the Middle East, today’s understanding of gay relationships as abnormal or unnatural relies on concepts invented less than a century ago. In an essay in New Lines magazine, CMES Visiting Fellow Sultan Alamer, a political science doctoral student at George Washington University explores this complicated history. Read the full story on the New Lines website.

by Hacı Osman Gündüz, PhD Candidate, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

After two years of dormancy due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Hamilton A. R. Gibb Lecture Series was back in action in March 2022. The series is the tāj (crown) of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, as CMES Director William Granara, Gordon Gray Professor of the Practice of Arabic, described it. The series was established in 1964 with funds provided by Mr. John Goelet, who was a student of Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb (d. 1976), the former James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and University Professor at Harvard University. This year’s guest speaker was Michael Cooperson, Professor of Arabic at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is the first speaker of the series to have completed all his higher education—AB ('87), AM ('91), and PhD ('94) —at Harvard..... Read more about The Gibb Lecture Series 2022: Two Talks by Michael Cooperson