PhD Alumni Kristen Alff Awarded the World History Association's 2019 Dissertation Prize

PhD alumni Kristen Alff  was  awarded the World History Association’s 2019 Dissertation Prize for the Best Doctoral Dissertation. The award recognizes doctoral work in world, global, or transnational history with an emphasis on analysis of question with global implications such as the exchange and interchange of cultures, the comparison of two or more civilizations or cultures, or the study in a macro-historical manner of a phenomenon that had a global impact. Titled “The Business of Property: Levantine Joint-stock Companies, Land, Law, and Capitalist Development Around the Mediterranean, 1850-1925, ” Alff’s dissertation examined the connections among capitalism, law, and property in the Eastern Mediterranean. Alff found out that the dire food shortages and Levantine companies' ability to make super-profits during World War I produced major social and economic transformations that were already underway in the region. She also suggested that these transformations and the actors involved in their realization contributed to the shape of capitalism around the Mediterranean basin. Dr. Alff is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in History at University of Virginia- Corcoran and will join North Carolina State University in Fall 2020 as Assistant Professor of History and International Studies. In addition to turning her dissertation into a book, she is working on another book project that takes theoretical inspiration from business history and geology to investigate the plentiful, yet unexplored, resource of bitumen in the Dead Sea, Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula. Dr. Alff has been awarded honors for her teaching at Stanford University, and her doctoral work has  been supported by many grants from Palestine-American Research Center, Social Science Research Council, Mellon Foundation, Stanford Humanities Center, and Stanford History Department’s Wetter Dissertation Completion Grant.