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University of Chicago Anthropologists who work in the Middle East & North Africa

Faculty
Students:
     Preparing for the field
     In the field
     Writing up
     Recent PhDs

​Faculty:

• Hussein Ali Agrama - Middle East, Egypt (Anthropology of religion, Islam, law, colonial power)

​Students:

​Preparing for the Field

• Sarah Adcock (A) - Iraq/Turkey (Origins of social complexity, emergence of socio-political elites, origins of metallurgy, state formation, the Ubaid)
• Yazan Doughan - Amman, Jordan (Semiotic Regimes, nationalism and citizenship, aesthetics; "Semiotic Regimentation of Urban Space: Urban Development in Amman Jordan")
• Ali Feser - Lebanon (Political economy and the state; sexuality and kinship; bodies in transition: memory, violence, affect, gender, consumption, youth; family law and the growing movement for civil marriage in Lebanon)
• Kristin Hickman - Morocco and its relation with the EU and the Gulf States (modernity, globalization, transnational collaborations, urban planning, infrastructural development, electronic technology, e-governance)
• Yaqub Hilal -  Middle East (Subjectivity, gender, linguistics, semiotics)

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​In the Field

• Melissa Rosenzweig (A) - Ziyaret Tepe, Turkey; "Imperial Environments: The Politics of Agricultural Practices at Ziyaret Tepe, Turkey, in the First Millennium BCE"

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​Writing Up

• Royal Ghazal (A) - Oman; "Craft and Trade in Bronze Age Oman from the Perspective of the Coastal Ja'alaan Region"
• Kelda Jamison - Southeast Turkey; " Inscribing Illiteracies: Standardizing Linguistic Practices and Publics in Kurdish Turkey"
• Alejandro Paz (Ling) - Latin America & Israel/Palestine; "Discursive Transformation: Ethnolinguist Identity among Latin American Labor Migrants and Their Children in Israel" [Defense Autumn 2009]
• Jeremy Walton - Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey; "Constructing Civic Virtue in a Secular State: Islam, Civil Society and Liberal Piety in Contemporary Turkey" [Defense Autumn 2009]

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​Recent PhDs

• Lori Allen – Ramallah; Palestine/West Bank; “Suffering through a Nationalist Uprising: The Cultural Politics of Human Rights, Violence, and Victimhood in Palestine”
• Rebecca Bryant - Nicosia & Girne, Cyprus; Istanbul, Turkey; “Educating Ethnicity: On the Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus”
• Tania Forte - A Palestinian Israeli Village in Galilee [N. of Haifa]; “On Making a Village: Transactions, Land and Histories in a Palestinian Village in the Galilee”
• Kaylin Goldstein - Israel/Palestine; “Nations on Display: The Politics of Museums in Israeli Society”
• Sarah Graff (A) - NW Syria; "Economy and Society: An Archaeological Reconstruction of the Political and Informal Economy of Northwestern Syria in the Third Millennium BC"”
• Simon Hawkins – Tunisia; “Globalization vs Civilization: The Ideologies of Foreign Language Learning in Tunisia”
• EngSeng Ho - Sana’a & Tarim, Southern Yemen; “ Genealogical Figures in an Arabian Indian Ocean Diaspora”
• Samuel Kaplan - Gülek [near Tarsus], Turkey; “Education and the Politics of National Culture in a Turkish Community [1990]”
• Krista Lewis (A) – Yemen; “Space and the Spice of Life: Food, Politics, and Landscape in Ancient Yemen”
• Thomas Lyons - Algeria/France; “The Fictional Artifact: Ethnography and the Novel in Algeria”
• Kimberly Mills – Tunisia; “Reproducing the Nation: The Politics of Family Planning in Tunisia”
• Daniel Monterescu – Jaffa, Israel; “Spatial Relationality: Urban Space and Jewish-Arab Relations in Palestinian-Israeli Mixed Towns, 1948-2004”
• Tamara Neuman - Jerusalem, Israel; “Reinstating the Religious Nation: A Study of National Religious Persuasion, Settlement and Violence in Hebron”
• Caroline Seymour-Jorn - Cairo, Egypt; “Indaha Qalam: ‘She Has a Pen’, The Social Discourse of Contemporary Female Fiction Writers in Cairo”
• Ian Straughn (A) - NW Syria; "Materializing Islam: An Archaeology of Landscape in Early Islamic Period Syria (c. 600-1000 CE)"
• Kabir Tambar - Çorum, Turkey; "Stones of Karbala: Sectarian Dimensions of Secularism in Turkey" [Alevism, Shiism, Secularism]
• Hadas Weiss - Israel/West Bank; "Ideology and Practice in the West Bank Settlement Movement"

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