Derek Penslar, William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard University, has long studied modern Jewish history from a global perspective. In his new biography of Theodor Herzl, Penslar examines how the founder of modern Zionism’s personal life influenced his political impact. He discussed Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader with the... Read more about Herzl Re-imagined: Derek Penslar Weighs the Impact of Theodor Herzl's Personal Power

On July 10, 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed an order which would allow the disintegration of Hagia Sophia’s museum status and turn it back into a mosque. Read an analysis in the Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy at Harvard Kennedy School by CMES AM student and JMEPP...

Read more about Turkey’s Hagia Sophia Decision as Foreign Policy Signal

CMES Director William Granara, Gordon Gray Professor of the Practice of Arabic, has been awarded a 2020 Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship for his book Narrating Muslim Sicily: War and Peace in the Medieval Mediterranean...

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It should not have taken a string of tragic and highly visible incidents of police brutality in the middle of a suffocating pandemic to sharpen the need to recognize and reckon with anti-Black racism and the legacy of slavery, but it did. Watching or reading about the horrifying final moments of the murder of George Floyd, some of us were immediately reminded of Radio Raheem—how is that for a name with "Middle Eastern" resonances?—and his tragic end, "fictionalized" more than thirty years ago in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989).*

At least, on this occasion, Floyd...

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Rosie Bsheer, Assistant Professor of History, and Cemal Kafadar, Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies, both core faculty members of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, recommend the following books on race and slavery that have special relevance for Middle East studies. For information on locating books at a library near you, visit www.worldcat.org...

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"COVID-19 has shown that atypical, transnational security issues need to be taken seriously. Man-made threats are not the only forces that can devastate the globe and fundamentally disrupt daily life," writes second-year Center for Middle Eastern Studies AM student Margaret Dene, in an article for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where she is a summer Research Associate. Read the complete article on the Foreign Policy...

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During the 9th century, Arab armies from North Africa conquered Sicily, leading to four centuries of Muslim history on the island, which is now part of Italy. Sicily during that period has often been portrayed as an interfaith utopia where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived side by side, giving rise to a cultural synthesis, but as CMES Director William Granara explains, the reality was more complex. In "Muslim Sicily and Its Legacies... Read more about William Granara on the Ottoman History Podcast