Jump to content

Ussama Makdisi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ussama Makdisi is a Palestinian American historian, specializing in the history of the modern Middle East. He is a professor of history and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley.[1]

Makdisi's research focuses on the cultural and political history of the Middle East, with emphasis on identity, sectarianism, nationalism, and modernity.[2]

In 2018, he was awarded the Berlin Prize.[3]

Makdisi is part of a notable academic family — his uncle is the renowned literary theorist Edward Said, and his mother is Jean Said Makdisi.

Early life

[edit]

Ussama Makdisi was born in 1968 in Washington, D.C.. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University and later earned his Ph.D. in History from Princeton University.[2]

Academic career

[edit]

Makdisi held the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He has also served as a visiting professor at the American University of Beirut and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.[4]

From 2012 to 2013, he was a resident fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study.[5]

Books

[edit]
  • Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World (University of California Press, 2019)
  • Faith Misplaced: the Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations, 1820-2001 (Public Affairs, 2010)
  • Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East (Cornell University Press, 2008)
  • The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (University of California Press, 2000)
  • co-editor Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa (Indiana University Press, 2006)

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Ussama Makdisi | Department of History".
  2. ^ a b "Wiko Recollections | Ussama Makdisi" (PDF). Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Retrieved 2024-06-14.
  3. ^ https://www.americanacademy.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Press-Release-Fellows-Class-2017-18_English_FINAL2.pdf
  4. ^ "Ussama Makdisi". Department of History. Retrieved 2024-06-14.
  5. ^ "Ussama Makdisi".