He held teaching and research positions in several universities in the Middle East, the United States, and Europe, including the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, where he served as a Marie Curie Experienced Researcher,[4] and Harvard University, where, among other appointments, he was a postdoctoral fellow for two years with a project entitled "Artificial Nations? The Sykes-Picot and the Islamic State's narratives in a historical perspective".[5] He holds a two-year M.A. in Israeli society and politics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Ph.D. in history from the University of Bologna, and lived for years in several countries in the Middle East, including, with visiting appointments, Egypt ('Ain Shams University), the Palestinian Territories (Birzeit University), Israel (Hebrew University), and Turkey (Bilkent University).
Jonathan Berkey
I teach the full range of Middle Eastern history since the rise of Islam, and I participate in Davidson's Humanities Program. My research and writing focus on Islamic religious culture and medieval Egypt and Syria.
It Can Be Lonely to Have a Middle-of-the Road Opinion on the Middle East (Published 2024)
Some college students and faculty members are seeking space for nuanced perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war on deeply divided campuses.
Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism - Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism
ICSZ supports the development of Critical Zionism Studies with resources for academics and activists. The Institute’s work includes fellowships,
Official site for academic, artist, & advocate, Sunn m'Cheaux aka Gullah Teacha
"Sunn m’Cheaux is the first and so far only instructor of Gullah at Harvard. He says he’s honored and humbled to be here, but knows he carries the responsibility of sharing the language and history of his people to a broader audience." -The Harvard Gazette
Fred M. Donner | Middle Eastern Studies
Pick Hall for International Studies 5828 South University Ave., Room 301 Chicago, Illinois 60637
Habermas as an ethnic thinker Par Excellence: on critique, Palestine and the role of intellectuals
Taking Habermas’ 2023 statement on Palestinians-Israel as the point of entry, this article examines his concept of critique. Against the dominant view of him as a philosopher of ‘universalism’ and ...
The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate (1937)
Palestinian trade unionist George Mansour (b. 1905 – d. 1963) initially worked as a baker, then as school teacher in Nazareth before his family moved to Jaffa in 1927, where he worked first in tra...
Director Michael Kratsios on Twitter / X
Today, roughly the same amount of basic research is done in industry as in academia. It’s time our doctoral training reflected that. @NSF is launching a first-of-its-kind 4-year PhD program at more than 30 universities. Students will spend a year+ embedded with industry… pic.twitter.com/8BzVoRRkBj— Director Michael Kratsios (@mkratsios47) July 29, 2026
Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis
Scientists agree that we are on the precipice of a global climate crisis. How will it transform colleges and universities?Winner of the Frederic W. Ness Book Award by the Association of American Colleges and UniversitiesIn 2019, intense fires in the San Francisco Bay Area closed universities and drove afflicted people to shelter at other campuses. At the same time, extraordinary fires ravaged eastern Australia. Several universities responded by promising material and research support to damaged businesses while also hosting refugees and emergency response teams in student residence halls. This was an echo of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina on Tulane University in 2005.In Universities on Fire, futurist Bryan Alexander explores higher education during an age of unfolding climate crisis. Powered by real-world examples and the latest research, Alexander assesses practical responses and strategies by surveying contemporary programs and academic climate research from around the world. He establishes a model of how academic institutions may respond and offers practical pathways forward for higher education. How will the two main purposes of education—teaching and research—change as the world heats up? Alexander positions colleges and universities in the broader social world, from town-gown relationships to connections between how campuses and civilization as a whole respond to this epochal threat.Current studies of climate change trace the likely implications across a range of domains, from agriculture to policy, urban design, technology, culture, and human psychology. However, few books have predicted or studied the effects of the climate crisis on colleges and universities. By connecting climate research to a deep, futures-informed analysis of academia, Universities on Fire explores how climate change will fundamentally reshape higher education.
Zellentin Holger, Prof. Dr.
Holger Zellentin is an award-winning scholar of Late Antiquity, with a focus on Talmudic and Qur’anic studies. He combines literary, legal and historical approaches in order to understand shared and diverging patterns within Jewish, Christian and early Islamic cultural traditions.He has received funding from the European Research Council, the British Academy, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). He has been awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2014), an ERC Consolidator Grant, The Quran as a Source for Late Antiquity (2020-2026) as well as an Opus Magnum grant of the Volkswagen Foundation, Jesus and the Original Law in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2026-2028). From 2020 to 2025, he served as the chair of the board of directors of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (IQSA), and from 2012-2019, he was a member of the steering committee of the British and Irish Association for Jewish Studies (BIAJS). In 2019, he joined the University of Tübingen, where he now works, climbs and cycles.
The Standpoint of Heimatlosigskeit and the Planet
Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, it has become impossible to comprehend the world solely through the lens of Hegel’s Berlin or Kojève’s Paris—even as nation-states continue to wrestle with their growing obsolescence. The planetary condition of human existence has also intensified a form of nihilism rooted in modernity: geographically through globalization, and cosmically through thermodynamics. If, in the twentieth century, reactionary politics sought to “overcome modernity” by returning to a notion of homeland (Heimat), the twenty-first century calls for a renewed framework—one that begins, perhaps, from the standpoint of Heimatlosigkeit.
The Standpoint of Heimatlosigskeit and the Planet
Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, it has become impossible to comprehend the world solely through the lens of Hegel’s Berlin or Kojève’s Paris—even as nation-states continue to wrestle with their growing obsolescence. The planetary condition of human existence has also intensified a form of nihilism rooted in modernity: geographically through globalization, and cosmically through thermodynamics. If, in the twentieth century, reactionary politics sought to “overcome modernity” by returning to a notion of homeland (Heimat), the twenty-first century calls for a renewed framework—one that begins, perhaps, from the standpoint of Heimatlosigkeit.
Sollte der Krieg Russlands gegen die Ukraine die Epistemologie der Osteuropäischen Geschichte verändern und wenn ja, wie?
The short article argues for revitalizing historical research to questions of the longue durée and, in analogy to the New Imperial History, considers the emergence of a New National History possible. Above all, the article calls for a continued decolonialisation of Russian history and, in this context, also for a strengthening of the Ukraine and Belarus focus in research, teaching and language mediation as well as in the form of a German Historical Institute in Kyiv.
Yasser Arafat: Biography
The man who lead the PLO for over 40 years and managed the uneasy balance between militancy and diplomacy in the Middle East.
Masar Badil | Program on Extremism | The George Washington University
Authored by Jeff Parsons, Asher Stern, Samantha Wampold and Zeynep Ozharat
Pro-Trump Tech Billionaires Are Poised to Cash In on Gaza's 'Peace' Deal
Documents show Tony Blair’s Ellison-funded institute designed Gaza’s recovery plan on data-driven lines echoing Oracle-Palantir war systems.
