Research Interests

The modern social histories of Egypt, Israel and Palestine have been my principal research areas. However, my interests are broad and eclectic. My intellectual profile has been formed by engagement with political economy, cultural studies, and comparative empire studies. At Stanford I have taught a broad range of courses from the rise of Islam to the present.

Courses Taught

Lectures:

• The Formation of the Contemporary Middle East

Colloquia and Seminars:

• Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
• The American Empire in the Middle East Since the Cold War
• The United States and the Middle East since 1945
• Modern Egypt
• Economic and Social History of the Modern Middle East
• Research Seminar in the Modern Middle East

Publications

Books

Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2011) co-edited with Frédéric Vairel

The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (Washington, DC: Solidarity Center, 2010)

The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005 (Stanford University Press, 2006); co-edited with Rebecca L. Stein

The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora (University of California Press, 1998; paperback edition, American University of Cairo Press, 2005).

Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2001)

Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report (University of California Press, 1996); co-edited with Joe Stork

Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948-1965 (University of California Press, 1990). Arabic translation: al-`Alam al-ahmar: hal kana yurafrif hunak? al-siyasat al-markisiyya wa'l-niza` al-`arabi al-isra'ili (Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafa al-Jadida, 1996)

Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (South End Press, 1989); co-edited with Zachary Lockman

Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954 (Princeton University Press, 1987); co-autho red with Zachary Lockman. Arabic translation: al-`Ummal wa'l-haraka al-siyasiyya fi misr: al-wataniyya, al-shuyu`iyya, al-islamiyya, 2 vols. (Cairo: Markaz al-Buhuth al-`Arabiyya, 1992, 1996). 2nd edition: American University in Cairo Press (1998)

Recent Articles and Book Chapters
(For complete list see CV)

• “Workers and Egypt’s January 25th Revolution,” International Labor and Working Class History (forthcoming).
• “The Middle East and North Africa Beyond Classical Social Movement Theory,” and “Afterword” (with Frédéric Vairel) and “A Workers’ Social Movement on the Margin of the Global Neoliberal Order, Egypt 2004-2009” in Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa (Stanford University Press, 2011).
• “The Karaites of Modern Egypt,” in Norman Stillman, ed. Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (Brill 2010) Vol. 3, 108-13.
• “Knowing the Other: Arabs, Islam, and the Western Cultural Tradition,” in Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century, Hazel Rose Markus and Paula M. L. Moya, eds. (Norton Press, 2010), 199-215.
• “The New Global Economy and the Political Economy of Islamic Social Movements,” Wujhat Nazr (Cairo), Dec. 2008, 20-25 (in Arabic).
• “The New McCarthyism: Policing Thought about the Middle East” in Academic Freedom after 9/11, Beshara Doumani, ed., (Zone Press, 2006), 237-66; earlier version: “The New American McCarthyism: Policing Thought about the Middle East,” Race & Class 46 (no. 1, July-September 2004):101-15.
• “Forgetfulness for Memory: The Limits of the New Israeli History,” Journal of Palestine Studies 35 (no. 2, winter 2005):6-23.
• “Political Islam and the New Global Economy: The Political Economy of an Egyptian Social Movement,” The New Centennial Review 5 (no. 1, spring 2005):111-39.
• “Jews as Native Iraqis: An Introduction,” Foreword to Nissim Rejwan’s The Last Jews in Baghdad” (University of Texas Press, 2004), pp. xi-xxii.
• “Is Terrorism a Useful Term in Understanding the Middle East and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict?” Radical History Review no. 85 (winter 2003):12-23.
• “The Jewish Business Elite in Twentieth Century Egypt: Pillars of the National Economy or Compradors?” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 1 (no. 2, Autumn 1999):113-38.
• “Society and Economy, 1923-1952,” in The Cambridge History of Egypt, M.W. Daly ed., (Cambridge University Press, 1998) 2:309-33.
• “Political Economy and Public Culture in a State of Constant Conflict: 50 Years of Jewish Statehood,” Jewish Social Studies 4 (no. 3, 1998):96-141.

Recent Journalism and Analysis of Current Events
(For complete list see CV)

• “After the Revolution,” roundtable with Stanford Magazine, May 2011, 56-64.
• “Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation and Palestinian-Israeli Peace,” Jewish Voice for Peace, May 11, 2011.
• “Egypt’s Workers Rise Up,” The Nation, Mar. 7, 2011.
• “Historian Joel Beinin on the Egyptian Labor Crisis,” The Human Experience, February 2011.
• “Egypt at the tipping point?” The Middle East Channel, ForeignPolicy.com, Jan. 31, 2011; Hebrew version, “Mitzrayim be-nekudat ha-al chazor?” Hagada Hasmolit, Feb. 1, 2011.
• “Whose side is Obama on anyway?” with Mitchell Zimmerman, Salon.com, Jan. 30, 2011.
• “How did the U.S. get in bed with Mubarak?” interview with Justin Elliott, Salon.com, Jan. 29, 2011.
• “A Day in the Wilderness of Judea,” Jadaliyya, Dec. 26, 2010.
• “The Problem is the Israeli Occupation: al-Nabi Saleh,” Jadaliyya, Dec. 20, 2010.
• “Contesting Past and Present at Silwan,” Middle East Report Online, Sept. 17, 2010.
• “Egyptian Workers Demand a Living Wage,” The Middle East Channel, ForeignPolicy.com, May 12, 2010.
• “Confronting Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem,” Middle East Report Online, Feb. 14, 2010  
• “Building a Different Middle East,” The Nation, Jan. 15, 2010
• “Rachel Corrie in Palestine…and in San Francisco” Middle East Report Online, August 2009; Arabic version in Wujhat Nazr (Cairo), Nov. 2009.

Fellowships. Grants and Awards

• VPUE Faculty Grant for Undergraduate Research, 2010-11
• Hewlett Faculty Research Grant, 2010
• Palestinian American Research Center Research Grant, 2010
• Ford Foundation, grant for a monthly interdisciplinary seminar and an international workshop on “Islamists and Democrats,” Middle East Studies Center, AUC, 2006-08 ($75,000)
• Fellow, Center for Arabic Study Abroad, AUC, fall 2004
• Stanford University Knight Journalism Fellows, Favorite Professor Award, 2004
• Graduate Service Recognition Award, 2004
• Hewlett Faculty Research Grant, 2003
• Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of History, AUC, December 2002
• Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar grant, Stanford University, 2002-04 ($110,000)
• Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center, 1987-88; 1999-2000
• University of California Humanities Research Institute Fellowship, 2000 (declined)
• Hewlett Faculty Research Grant, 1997
• Social Science Research Council Advanced Research Grant, 1994
• Fulbright Research Grant, 1992-93
• Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, 1990
• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, 1987
• Fellow, American Research Center in Egypt, 1986
• Pew Foundation Grant, 1985, 1987
• National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections Grant, 1984, 1988        
• Fellow, Fulbright‑Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad Program, 1980-81

University Service

• Chair, Dept. of History Middle East Search Committee, 2008-09, 2010-11
• Coordinator, Worlds of Islam, Freshman Humanities sequence, 2005-07
• Director of Graduate Study, Dept. of History, 2002-04, 2005-06
• Dept. of History, Africa search committee, 2003-04
• Chair, Dept. of History Graduate Admissions and Fellowships Committee, 2000-02
• Chair, Dept. of History Modern Islamic History Search Committee, 1998-99
• Organizer, Dept. of History, Curriculum in Empires & Cultures Pedagogical Workshop, Sept. 14-18, 1998
• Coordinator, Workshop on Empires and Cultures, 1995-97, 1999-2001, 2002-03; co-organizer, annual symposia of May 31, 1996, June 7, 1997, May 20, 2000
• Dept. of History, Graduate Admissions and Fellowships Committee, 1996-97, 1998-99
• Dept. of History, Curriculum Committee, 1997-98
• Faculty advisor, Stanford delegation to West Coast Model League of Arab States, Berkeley, CA, Mar. 26-28, 1998
• Chair, Dept. of History, Affirmative Action Committee, 1995-97; member, 2002-03
• Resident Fellow, Potter House, 1995-99

Ph.D Theses Supervised

• Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, “The End of the Concessionary Regime: Oil and American Power in Iraq, 1958-1972” (2011)
• Marwan Hanania, “From Colony to Capital: A Socio-Economic and Political History of Amman, 1878-1958” (2010)
• Jennifer Derr, “The Geography of Authority: Environmental Infrastructure, Cash Crop Agriculture, and Property Relations in Southern Egypt, 1868-1931” (2009)
• Brant Downes, “The Making of the Modern Ottoman Waterfront: Salonica and Beirut in the Late Nineteenth Century,” (2007)
• Max Weiss, “Institutionalizing Sectarianism: Law, Religious Culture, and the Remaking of Shi‘i Lebanon, 1920-1947,” (2007) – Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Prize in Social Sciences, Middle East Studies Association, 2007.
• Toby Jones, “The Dogma of Development: Technopolitics and the Making of Modern Saudi Arabia, 1950-80,” (2007).
• Shira Robinson, “Occupied Citizens in a Liberal State: Palestinians under Military Rule and the Colonial Formation of Israeli Society, 1948-1966,” (2006) – Ben Halpern Biennial Dissertation Award, 2004-2005, Association for Israel Studies.
• Michelle Campos, “Between ‘‘beloved Ottomania’’ and ‘‘the land of Israel’’ in the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine, 1903–1914,” (2005).
• Nancy Reynolds, “Commodity Communities: Interweavings of Market Cultures, Consumption Practices, and Social Power in Egypt, 1907-1961,” (2003)
• Robert Blecher, “The Medicalization of Sovereignty: Medicine, Public Health and Political Authority in Syria, 1861-1936,” (2002).

Professional Affiliations

• Consulting Editor, International Labor and Working Class History, 2010-
• Co-Editor, Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures, 2004-
• President, Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), 2001-02
• Board of Directors, MESA, 1993-96, 2000-03
• Editorial Committee, Middle East Report, 1981-97, 2003-06 (Chair 1987; Reviews Editor, 1988-95; Contributing Editor, 1999-2003, 2007-  )