CV
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Yale University
Assistant Professor, Department of History, 2010 to Present
Stanford University
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities, Department of History, 2008-2010
EDUCATION
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, History, 2008
“The Nature of Ottoman Egypt: Irrigation, Environment, and Bureaucracy in the Long Eighteenth Century”
Winner, 2009 Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences, Middle East Studies Association
Winner, 2008 James H. Kettner Dissertation Award, University of California, Berkeley
MA, University of California, Berkeley, History, 2003
BA, Rice University, History and Chemistry, 2001
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Books
ed., Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa. New York: Oxford University Press. Under Contract.
Articles
“Global Implications of the Middle Eastern Environment.” History Compass 9 (2011). Forthcoming.
“From the Bottom Up: The Nile, Dirt, and Humans in Ottoman Egypt.” In Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East: History, Policy, Power, and Practice, edited by Edmund Burke III and Diana K. Davis. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011.
“The Middle East in Global Environmental History.” In A Companion to Global Environmental History, edited by J.R. McNeill and E.C. Stewart. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Forthcoming.
“al-Ḥayāh bayna al-Mumārasa al-Ijtimā‘īyya wa al-Ḥajr al-Ṣiḥḥī li-Muḥammad ‘Alī” [Life between Social Practice and Muhammad’s ‘Ali’s Quarantine]. In ‘Aṣr Muḥammad ‘Alī [The Reign of Muhammad ‘Ali]. Cairo: al-Majlis al-A‘lā lil-Thaqāfa. Forthcoming.
“Tārīkh Dirāsāt al-Tābi‘ wa Naẓariyyatayn ‘an al-Sulṭa” [Subaltern Studies and Two Theories of Power]. In Thaqāfat al-Nukhba wa Thaqāfat al-‘Āmma fī Miṣr fī al-‘Aṣr al-‘Uthmānī [Elite and Popular Culture in Egypt in the Ottoman Period], edited by Nāṣir Aḥmad Ibrāhīm. Cairo: Markaz al-Buḥūth wa al-Dirāsāt al-Ijtimā‘iyya, 2008.
“The Heart’s Desire: Gender, Urban Space and the Ottoman Coffee House.” In Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Dana Sajdi. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007.
Co-Authored with Gretchen Head. “Dirāsat al-Tābi‘: I‘ādat Kitābat al-Tārīkh” [Subaltern Studies: The Rewriting of History]. Akhbār al-Adab 587 (10 October 2004).
“al-Qāmūs wa al-Istishrāq” [The Lexicon and Orientalism]. Wijhāt Naẓar 6, no. 66 (July 2004).
Co-Authored with Joel E. Boyd, Ari Briskman, Vicki Colvin, and Daniel Mittleman. “Size-Dependent Dielectric Properties of Liquid Water Clusters.” In Liquid Dynamics: Experiment, Simulation, and Theory, edited by John T. Fourkas. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society, 2002.
Reviews
Diana K. Davis, Resurrecting the Granary of Rome: Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007). International Journal of Middle East Studies 41: 3 (August 2009).
Carlos E. Cordova, Millennial Landscape Change in Jordan: Geoarchaeology and Cultural Ecology (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007). Agricultural History 83: 1 (Winter 2009).
Jane Hathaway, A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003). MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies 7 (Spring 2007).
Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2004). Arab Studies Journal 14: 2/ 15: 1 (Fall 2006/ Spring 2007).
Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 40: 2 (Winter 2006).
Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo’s Middle Class, Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003). Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 40: 2 (Winter 2006).
Stuart J. Borsch, The Black Death in Egypt and England: A Comparative Study (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2005). al-Waqā’i‘ al-Miṣrīyya (Fall 2006).
Amy J. Johnson, Reconstructing Rural Egypt: Ahmed Hussein and the History of Egyptian Development (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2004). Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 3:3 (Winter 2005).
SELECT GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND AWARDS
Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award in the Social Sciences, Middle East Studies Association, 2009
James H. Kettner Dissertation Award, University of California, Berkeley, 2008
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities, Department of History, Stanford University, 2008-2010
Qatar Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 2008-2009 (Declined)
Council of American Overseas Research Centers Multi-Country Research Fellowship, 2006-2007
American Research Center in Egypt Fellowship, 2006-2007
Andrew W. Mellon Grant, 2007
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, 2005-2006
Institute of Turkish Studies Grant, 2005
Center for Arabic Study Abroad Fellowship I, 2003-2004
TEACHING
Lectures
Three Empires of Islam: The Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals
The Ottoman Empire
Seminars
Sources and the Construction of Middle East History (Co-Taught with Abbas Amanat)
Environmental History of the Middle East
Ottoman Empire Seminar
Humans and Other Animals
Sexual Encounters: The Middle East and Europe (Co-Taught at Stanford University with Edith Sheffer)
SELECT CONFERENCE PAPERS AND LECTURES
“Energetics of the Animal Economy in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Presentation Given in the Workshop “Eighteenth-Century Crossroads in Ottoman Studies: Negotiating Communal, State, and Moral Boundaries.” Central European University, Budapest, May 2011.
“Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Lecture Given in the Series “People, Animals and the Environment in the Balkans and the Near East.” Istanbul Bilgi University and Orient-Institut Istanbul, May 2011.
“Before the Zoo: Humans and Animals in Ottoman Egypt.” Paper Presented at “The American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting.” Phoenix, April 2011.
“A Wandering Cow, a Scurrying Gecko, and Some Dogs: Toward a History of Animals in the Middle East.” Invited Plenary Address Given at the Conference “The Nonhuman, the Subhuman, and the Superhuman: Exploring Nature(s) in the Middle East.” University of Pennsylvania, April 2011.
“Reflections on Archival Fieldwork in Egypt.” Invited Presentation Given in the Workshop “History and the Social Sciences.” University College London, March 2011.
“Middle East Environmental History: The Fallow between Two Fields.” Invited Presentation Given in the Yale University Environmental History Colloquium Series, February 2011.
“Ottoman Egypt: An Animal History.” Invited Presentation Given at Yale University, Agrarian Studies Colloquium Series, February 2011.
“Coffee and Coffeehouses.” Invited Presentation Given at Princeton University in the workshop “Turqurie: Ottoman Fashions in Europe as Intercultural Exchange, 17th and 18th Centuries,” December 2010.
“Sacks of Grain, Stacks of Wood, and Some Limits of the Early Modern Ottoman Economy.” Invited Lecture Given at New York University, Program in Ottoman Studies, December 2010.
“Animals, Energy, Economy in Late Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Presentation Given at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the Series “Dissections: Sex, Science, and Medicine in the Middle East and North Africa,” November 2010.
“Irrigation and the Ottoman Empire.” Invited Lecture Given at Yale University, Council of Middle East Studies Colloquium Series, November 2010.
“Downstream in the Ottoman Empire: Irrigation and Early Modern Empire.” Invited Lecture Given at Rutgers University, Program in the History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Health, October 2010.
“A History of the Animal in Ottoman Egypt.” Paper Presented at “Dogs, Humans, and Other Animals: A Conversation.” University of California, Berkeley, June 2010.
“Unleashing the Beast: A History of Human-Animal Relations in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Lecture Given at the University of California, Davis, April 2010.
“Some Initial Thoughts on Dogs in Ottoman Egypt.” Paper Presented at “The American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting.” Portland, March 2010.
“Back and Forth in the Ottoman Empire: Archives and Imperial Rule.” Invited Presentation Given at “The Roundtable on Approaches to Ottoman History.” Stanford University, March 2010.
“Anatolian Timber and Egyptian Grain: Things That Made the Ottoman Empire.” Invited Lecture Given at “Early Modern Things Workshop.” Stanford University, January 2010.
“The Peasant Politics of Water in Ottoman Egypt.” Paper Presented at “The American Historical Association Annual Meeting.” San Diego, January 2010.
“Watering the Rosebud: Silt and Historical Imagination in Ottoman Fayyoum.” Paper Presented at “The Middle East Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting.” Boston, November 2009.
“An Irrigated Empire: The View from Ottoman Fayyoum.” Invited Lecture Given at the “Islamic Studies Workshop Series.” Stanford University, November 2009.
“Piles of History: The Nile, Dirt, and Humans in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Presentation Given at the “Middle East Studies Luncheon Lecture Series.” University of California, Berkeley, September 2009.
“Egyptian Water: An Ottoman Solution.” Invited Presentation Given at “Water and Environment in the Middle East Workshop.” Harvard University, May 2009.
“Coffee: A Caffeinated History of the Middle East.”Invited Lecture Given at San Francisco State University (April 2009) and Drew University (April 2009).
“Animals, Property, Law: The Case of Ottoman Egypt.” Paper Presented at “The American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting.” Tallahassee, February 2009.
“Egyptian Sylvan: A History of Wood, ca. 1700 to 1850.” Invited Lecture Given at “The Third Annual Middle East Center Symposium: Egypt.” Florida State University, February 2009.
“(Early) Modern Archive Animals.” Paper Presented at “The Middle East Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting.” Washington, D.C., November 2008.
“The Framework of Empire: A History of Wood and Labor in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Lecture Given at Yale University, February 2008.
“Imperial Lumberings: A History of Wood in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Lecture Given at Georgetown University, February 2008.
“How to Build Ships in Ottoman Suez: A History of Food and Wood in Early-Modern North Africa.” Invited Lecture Given at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 2008.
“Provisions for the Pilgrimage: Food and Wood in the Early-Modern Ottoman Empire.” Invited Lecture Given at the University of Pittsburgh, January 2008.
“Irrigating Alexandria: Labors of Life and Death on the Maḥmūdiyya Canal.” Invited Lecture Given at the University of Montana (November 2007), Virginia Tech (November 2007), the University of South Carolina (November 2007), Queens College (December 2007), Iowa State University (December 2007), Swarthmore College (December 2007), Florida State University (December 2007), Vanderbilt University (January 2008).
“Water Be Dammed: A History of Irrigation in Ottoman Fayyoum.” Paper Presented at “The Middle East Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting.” Montréal, Canada, November 2007.
“Oxen, Water Buffaloes, Donkeys, and Camels: Humans and Other Animals in Ottoman Egypt.” Paper Presented at “The Agricultural History Society Annual Meeting.” Iowa State University, June 2007.
“Beyond Center and Province: The Maghreb and Egypt in the Ottoman Period.” Paper Presented at “Ottoman Influences in the Maghreb.” Oran, Algeria, June 2007.
“Counting Men, Measuring Canals, Drawing Maps: The Science of Irrigation in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Lecture Given at “Le Centre d’études et de documentations économiques, juridiques et sociales.” Cairo, Egypt, May 2007.
(with Jennifer Derr) “Soiling History: The Environmental as a Framework of Analysis.” Invited Lecture Given to “The Interdisciplinary Seminar on Modern Middle East Studies.” American University in Cairo, Egypt, May 2007.
“A History of Animals in Ottoman Egypt.” Invited Lecture Given at “The American Research Center in Egypt.” Cairo, Egypt, May 2007.
“Irrigating Life: Labor, Enumeration, and Biopolitics in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Egypt.” Paper Presented at “The American Historical Association Annual Meeting.” Atlanta, January 2007.
“A Labor of Death: Constructing Life on the Maḥmūdiyya Canal.” Invited Lecture Given at “The American Research Center in Egypt.” Cairo, Egypt, June 2006.
“Life and Death on the Maḥmūdiyya Canal.” Paper Presented at “The Second World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies.” Amman, Jordan, June 2006.
“Why Build the Maḥmūdiyya Canal.” Invited Lecture Given at “Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire.” Cairo, Egypt, June 2006.
“Coffee and Society in the History of the Middle East.” Invited Lecture Given at “The American Center Alexandria.” Alexandria, Egypt, February 2006.
“Dirāsat al-Tābi‘ wa Naẓarīyyatayn ‘an al-Sulṭa” [Subaltern Studies and Two Theories of Power]. Invited Lecture Given to “The Egyptian Association for Historical Studies.” Cairo, Egypt, December 2005.
“Quarantining Death: Water and Plague in Egypt, 1775-1825.” Paper Presented at “The Fourth International Water History Association Conference: Water and Civilization.” Paris, France, December 2005.
“al-Ḥayāh bayna al-Mumārasa al-Ijtimā‘īyya wa al-Ḥajr al-Ṣiḥḥī li-Muḥammad ‘Alī” [Life between Social Practice and Muhammad’s ‘Ali’s Quarantine]. Paper Presented at “Muhammad ‘Ali’s Reign: A Conference on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of Muhammad’s ‘Ali’s Rule.” The High Council of Culture, Cairo, Egypt, November 2005.
“Dying on the Nile at the End of the Eighteenth Century: al-Jabartī’s Accounts of Plague.” Paper Presented at “The Social Context of Death, Dying, and Disposal.” University of Bath, UK, September 2005.
“The Heart’s Desire: Gender, Urban Space, and the Ottoman Coffeehouse.” Paper Presented at “Rethinking Culture in the Ottoman Eighteenth Century.” Princeton University, January 2005.
“Doctoring Women: Qasim Amin and the Egyptian Family.” Paper Presented at “The Middle East Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting.” San Francisco, November 2004.
“Obelisks and Mummies: The Scientification of British Egyptology.” Paper Presented at “The Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies.” University of California, Berkeley, March 2004.
“The Medicalization of the Egyptian Family.” Paper Presented at “Families and Households in History” (the Annual History Seminar of the Department of Arabic Studies). The American University in Cairo, March 2004.
“Amrīkā wa al-‘Ālam al-‘Arabī” [America and the Arab World]. Lecture Given at “The Society of the Family.” Cairo, Egypt, June 2003.
“Something’s Brewing: Coffeehouses and Society in the Ottoman Empire.” Paper Presented at “The Middle East Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting.” Washington, D.C., November 2002.
“Cutting Text: Foucault and Edward William Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon.” Paper Presented at “Global Localities: Theorizing Across Boundaries.” University of California, Irvine, November 2002.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Historical Association
Middle East Studies Association
Turkish Studies Association
American Association for the History of Medicine
American Research Center in Egypt
American Institute for Maghrib Studies
History of Science Society
American Society for Environmental History
American Association of University Professors
Egyptian Association for Historical Studies
RESEARCH LANGUAGES
English, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Modern Turkish, French, Spanish
“Ottoman Egypt: An Animal History.”Invited Presentation Given at Yale University, Agrarian Studies Colloquium Series, February 2011.
“Coffee and Coffeehouses.”Invited Presentation Given at Princeton University in the workshop “Turqurie: Ottoman Fashions in Europe as Intercultural Exchange, 17th and 18th Centuries,” December 2010.
“Sacks of Grain, Stacks of Wood, and Some Limits of the Early Modern Ottoman Economy.”Invited Lecture Given at New York University, Program in Ottoman Studies, December 2010.
“Animals, Energy, Economy in Late Ottoman Egypt.”Invited Presentation Given at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the Series “Dissections: Sex, Science, and Medicine in the Middle East and North Africa,” November 2010.
“Irrigation and the Ottoman Empire.”Invited Lecture Given at Yale University, Council of Middle East Studies Colloquium Series, November 2010.
“Downstream in the Ottoman Empire: Irrigation and Early Modern Empire.”Invited Lecture Given at Rutgers University, Program in the History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Health, October 2010.
“A History of the Animal in Ottoman Egypt.”Paper Presented at “Dogs, Humans, and Other Animals: A Conversation.”University of California, Berkeley, June 2010.