Middle East Political Economy Summer Institute Network
SUMMER INSTITUTE PARTICIPANTS
2018 Workshop: Educators
Ziad Abu-Rish: State Development
Ziad Abu-Rish is assistant professor of Middle East history at Ohio University. He is currently working on a book manuscript narrating and analyzing struggles around the political economy of Lebanon in the wake of independence. Abu-Rish is co-editor of The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (Pluto Press 2012) and serves on the editorial teams of both the Arab Studies Journal and Jadaliyya e-zine.
Samer Abboud: Security-Development Nexus
Samer N. Abboud is Associate Professor of International Studies at the Department of Historical and Political Studies, Arcadia University. His areas of focus include Syria, Lebanon, political economy, conflict and reconstruction, and violence. Dr. Abboud is the author of Syria (Polity Press, 2015) and the co-author of Rethinking Hizballah: Authority, Legitimacy, Violence (Ashgate, 2012). He holds a DPhil in Arab and Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter (UK).
Max Ajl: World Systems Theory & Agriculture
Max Ajl is a doctoral student in Development Sociology at Cornell University. He currently is based in Tunis, where he is doing his dissertation research on state agricultural development policy and the politics of price fixing during the era of state-directed development and the transition to capitalist agriculture in the countryside. His fields of expertise include comparative international development, political economy of social change, world-systems theory, Middle East political economy, and rural political economy. His academic writing has been published in many venues, including Historical Materialism, MERIP, and the Journal of Palestine Studies. He has presented at universities in Tunisia and across North America, including at Cornell, Columbia, and the University of California – Berkeley. He co-edits the Palestine page at Jadaliyya and is a contributing editor at Viewpoint Magazine.
Kristen Alff: Corporate Capital(ism?) in the Colonized World
Kristen Alff has a degree in American and British literature from Boston University. After working for five years as a reading and writing instructor at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, she travelled to Egypt where she entered the Master’s Program in Middle East Studies at American University in Cairo. At that time, her passion was focused on the Kurds in Iraq. Her master’s thesis examined the process of Kurdish identity- and community-formation. It combined Kurdish literature and British documents to analyze the ‘minoritization’ of the Kurds in Iraq from the late Ottoman through Iraq’s nominal independence in 1932.
While in Egypt, Kristen also learned both Egyptian colloquial and Modern Standard Arabic, and continued her studies for five years at American Language Institute at AUC. Upon returning to the United States following eleven years abroad, Kristen took up teaching in history and the humanities on a secondary level, and eventually left to pursue her doctorate in Middle East History at Stanford University.
Over the course of her four years at Stanford, Kristen’s interests have shifted to more political economic questions and business history. This shift was, in part, due to the new wave of interest in economic history since 2008. It was also inspired by the work of her primary advisor, Joel Beinin. More that this, however, this new passion came about through the discovery of unexamined archives of Levantine family corporations, whose members made their fortunes as participants in mid-nineteenth-century globalization. Kristen is currently beginning her fifth year in the history department and has just come back from one year in archives located in Beirut, Jerusalem, Marseille, Paris, Liverpool, London, and Istanbul. She is grateful to have received fellowships from PARC, CAORC, GRO-Stanford, and others in order to complete this ambitious research agenda. She is continuing to work hard to master at least a reading knowledge of Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, and Ottoman Turkish in order to be able to complete her anticipated project.
Kristen still loves to teach and has received honors for her teaching at Stanford. In the future she hopes to continue to teach students through both classroom teaching and by eventually publishing her dissertation in article and book form.
While in Egypt, Kristen also learned both Egyptian colloquial and Modern Standard Arabic, and continued her studies for five years at American Language Institute at AUC. Upon returning to the United States following eleven years abroad, Kristen took up teaching in history and the humanities on a secondary level, and eventually left to pursue her doctorate in Middle East History at Stanford University.
Over the course of her four years at Stanford, Kristen’s interests have shifted to more political economic questions and business history. This shift was, in part, due to the new wave of interest in economic history since 2008. It was also inspired by the work of her primary advisor, Joel Beinin. More that this, however, this new passion came about through the discovery of unexamined archives of Levantine family corporations, whose members made their fortunes as participants in mid-nineteenth-century globalization. Kristen is currently beginning her fifth year in the history department and has just come back from one year in archives located in Beirut, Jerusalem, Marseille, Paris, Liverpool, London, and Istanbul. She is grateful to have received fellowships from PARC, CAORC, GRO-Stanford, and others in order to complete this ambitious research agenda. She is continuing to work hard to master at least a reading knowledge of Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, and Ottoman Turkish in order to be able to complete her anticipated project.
Kristen still loves to teach and has received honors for her teaching at Stanford. In the future she hopes to continue to teach students through both classroom teaching and by eventually publishing her dissertation in article and book form.
Joel Beinin: Labor
Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1982 before coming to Stanford in 1983. From 2006 to 2008 he served as Director of Middle East Studies and Professor of History at the American University in Cairo. In 2002 he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.
Beinin’s research and writing focus on the social and cultural history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has written or edited ten books, including Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, 2nd edition (Stanford University Press, 2013), co-edited with Frédéric Vairel and The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (Solidarity Center, 2010). His most recent book, Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, was published by Stanford University Press in 2015.
His articles have been published in leading scholarly journals as well as The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, Middle East Report, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He has been interviewed on Al-Jazeera TV, BBC radio, (US) National Public Radio, and many other TV and radio programs throughout the world as well by the global print media.
Beinin’s research and writing focus on the social and cultural history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has written or edited ten books, including Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, 2nd edition (Stanford University Press, 2013), co-edited with Frédéric Vairel and The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (Solidarity Center, 2010). His most recent book, Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, was published by Stanford University Press in 2015.
His articles have been published in leading scholarly journals as well as The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, Middle East Report, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He has been interviewed on Al-Jazeera TV, BBC radio, (US) National Public Radio, and many other TV and radio programs throughout the world as well by the global print media.
Muriam Haleh Davis: Race and Capitalism
Muriam Haleh Davis is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California Santa Cruz. She focuses on development, decolonization and race in North Africa. I am currently working on a manuscript that studies how the postwar reinvention of a market economy influenced prevailing ideas of race and national identity in Algeria. She is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya`s Maghreb Page.
Bassam Haddad: Political Economy of Development, State-Business Relations
Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program and Associate Professor at the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs (SPGIA) at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and Co-Editor of Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (Pluto Press, 2012). Bassam is currently writing his second book on Understanding the Syrian Tragedy: The Long View (Stanford Press) and teaches a staple graduate seminar at Georgetown University on “The Politics of Syria." He serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal a peer-reviewed research publication and is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of a critically acclaimed film series on Arabs and Terrorism, based on extensive field research/interviews. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and the Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute, an umbrella for five organizations dealing with knowledge production on the Middle East. He serves on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio Journal.
Adam Hanieh: Approaching Issues of Class Formation
Adam Hanieh is a lecturer in the Development Studies Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is author of the forthcoming book, Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). His upcoming book, Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East, will be published by Haymarket Press in September 2013.
Shana Marshall: The New Politics of Patronage: The Arms Trade and Clientelism in the Arab World
Shana Marshall is Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and Research Faculty member at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She earned her PhD in International Relations and Comparative Politics of the Middle East at the University of Maryland in 2012. Her dissertation, “The New Politics of Patronage: The Arms Trade and Clientelism in the Arab World” (forthcoming, Columbia University Press) examines how Middle East governments use arms sales agreements to channel financial resources and economic privileges to pro-regime elites. Her work has appeared in The Middle East Report (MERIP), The International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle East Policy, Jadaliyya, and the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Prior to coming to George Washington University, Shana was a research fellow at The Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University (2011-2012) and the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University (2010-2011). Her current research focuses on patterns of military entrepreneurship in Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE and how these are shaped by the business practices of private multinational defense firms. She is also interested in how modes and patterns of bribery and corruption are institutionalized over time and incorporated into existing legal regimes.
Prior to coming to George Washington University, Shana was a research fellow at The Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University (2011-2012) and the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University (2010-2011). Her current research focuses on patterns of military entrepreneurship in Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE and how these are shaped by the business practices of private multinational defense firms. She is also interested in how modes and patterns of bribery and corruption are institutionalized over time and incorporated into existing legal regimes.
Sherene Seikaly: Postcolonial Theory
Sherene Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously she was Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo. She is the editor of the Arab Studies Journal, and co-founder and editor of Jadaliyya e-zine. Seikaly's Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2016) explores how Palestinian capitalists and British colonial officials used economy to shape territory, nationalism, the home, and the body.
I am a historian of capitalism, consumption, and development in the modern Middle East. The most enduring concern of my scholarly research has been to explore how individuals, groups, and governments deploy both concepts and material practices to shape economy, the body, the self, and the other. My research on Palestinian businessmen; reformers of the domestic sphere; thinkers and scientists; and British colonial officers and institutions contributes to social, cultural, and intellectual history, political economy, cultural studies, and gender studies.
I am a historian of capitalism, consumption, and development in the modern Middle East. The most enduring concern of my scholarly research has been to explore how individuals, groups, and governments deploy both concepts and material practices to shape economy, the body, the self, and the other. My research on Palestinian businessmen; reformers of the domestic sphere; thinkers and scientists; and British colonial officers and institutions contributes to social, cultural, and intellectual history, political economy, cultural studies, and gender studies.
