VOLUME 13, No. 3 • 2020 Graduate Applicant Visit Edition Special Graduate Applicant Edith Chen awarded Fulbright rather than against it. Afraid of a Kurdish Visit Edition nationalist movement, however, Turkish 6th-year Ph.D. stu- authorities perceived most developments This edition of the Near Eastern Studies dent Edith Chen involving the Kurds through the prism of newsletter highlights achievements of NES was awarded a nationalism. As such, they wanted to im- graduate students during the past year Fulbright for travel pose state authority by all means neces- and illustrates the opportunities available to Israel. She is in- sary on places like Dersim where, they be- to a graduate student in NES. The newslet- terested in the so- lieved, it was absent or lacking. ter also features news about Near Eastern cial, political, and Studies’ award-winning faculty and the administrative his- Onaylı and Fields receive Seeger Fellow- publishing activities of its alumni. tory of the Mongol ships Empire, in particu- Seventh-year Ph.D. Graduate Student News lar, the interaction between seden- student Dan Fields Deborah Schlein *19 to be new Near East- tary and nomadic civilizations as expressed has received for ern Studies Librarian in developments in Mongol, Chinese, and the last three years Islamic law, and explore questions of legal Stanley J. Seeger Deborah Schlein, pluralism. Fellowships, which who defended have allowed him her doctoral dis- Cevat Dargın named John Freely Fellow to study Modern sertation in Near Greek in Thessa- Eastern Studies Cevat Dargın, a loniki and Ioan- th on May 17, 2019, 5 -year Ph.D. stu- nina, Greece. His has been hired as dent, was named research focuses the Near Eastern the 2019 John on the cultural history of the late Ottoman Studies Librarian Freely Fellow by Empire and early Turkish Republic. His dis- in the Princeton the American Re- sertation analyses the formation of militia University Library. search Institute groups in the Black Sea region during the She will start work in Turkey. His re- final years of the Ottoman Empire. He is on July 13, 2020. She is currently Assistant search project is: interested in how nationalism worked (or Curator/Faculty Fellow in the Provost’s Question within didn’t) on a local and regional level to pro- Postdoctoral Librarian Fellowship Program Questions: Seyit duce changes in society and power struc- at New York University. While a graduate Riza and Dersim as tures and to what extent these changes student, she was a Graduate Fellow in the Part of Kurdish, Armenian and Alevi Ques- then contributed to an outbreak of vio- Center for Digital Humanities and was Ear- tions in the Making of Modern Turkey from lence across the southern Black Sea littoral ly Arabic Print Project Coordinator in Spe- the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 to in the final years of the empire. cial Collections at Firestone Library. Her the Suppression of Dersim in 1937–1938. dissertation, which received the Near East- “This project follows the story of Seyit Rıza Kutay Onaylı, a third-year graduate stu- ern Studies Department Prize for an Out- (1863–1937), a local leader of the Dersim dent in NES, also received a Stanley J. standing PhD Dissertation, was entitled region in eastern Turkey, in order to explore Seeger Fellowship, which allowed him to “Medicine without Borders: Tibb and the the process of transformation from empire further his study of Modern Greek and Asbab Tradition in Mughal and Colonial In- to nation-state. Analysis of the events in conduct primary source research last sum- dia,” which was advised by Michael Cook, Dersim demonstrates that throughout his mer. He studies cultural history and litera- Class of 1943 University Professor of Near life Seyit Rıza and most other tribal leaders ture in the late Ottoman Empire and the Eastern Studies. in Dersim preferred working with the state early Turkish Republic, specifically, the cul- tural and intellec- of the University of California, Irvine, Law taught a writing tual history of the School. seminar, “iPray,” Greek Orthodox that examined minority. His dis- Cecila Palombo *20 awarded Dean’s Com- the intersection sertation, tenta- pletion Fellowship/PGRA program of religion and tively titled “The technology. Shi- Empire of Rum,” Cecilia Palombo liwala’s disser- is a study of Con- was awarded tation is a com- stantinopolitan a 2019 Dean’s parative study of Greek discourses Completion Fel- fatwas issued at on Ottoman his- lowship/PGRA the turn of the tory, Rum identi- program, a pres- twentieth century ty, and imperial belonging from the 1900s tigious fellowship by prominent Egyptian and Indian scholars to the 1930s. that reflects the on topics related to transformations in the Graduate School’s realms of technology, society, and politics. Varak Ketsemanian awarded Fulbright high opinion of a and Hyde Summer Fellowships student’s scholar- Faculty News ship. The title of Fourth-year Ph.D. her dissertation, which she defended on New publication by Marina Rustow student Varak January 16, 2020, is “The Christian Clergy’s Ketsemanian was Islamic Local Government in Late Mar- Khedouri A Zilkha awarded both a wanid and Abbasid Egypt,” and her advisor Professor of Jew- Fulbright Research was Michael Cook, Class of 1943 University ish Civilization in Fellowship and a Professor of Near Eastern Studies. the Near East Ma- 2019 Donald and rina Rustow’s new Mary Hyde Sum- Kate Pukhovaia receives Donald and book, The Lost Ar- mer Fellowship for Mary Hyde Academic-Year Fellowship chive: Traces of a Research Abroad in Caliphate in a Cai- the Humanities. His Fifth-year Ph.D. ro Synagogue, has research relates to student Kate been published by the development of different forms of na- Pukhovaia was Princeton Univer- tionalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, awarded a Donald sity Press (2020). revolutionary violence, and constitutional and Mary Hyde “Illustrated with movements, in particular, the social histo- Academic-Year stunning ex- ry of the National Constitution of Ottoman Fellowship for Re- amples from the Armenians in 1863, and the communal search Abroad in Cairo Geniza, this dynamics/mechanisms that it created on the Humanities compelling book imperial, communal, and provincial levels. for 2019–20. The Hyde Fellowships advances our un- Dana Lee *19 named Visiting Fellow in in the Humani- derstanding of Harvard Law School’s Program in Islamic ties are awarded to outstanding doctoral documents as Law students in the departments of Art and physical artifacts, Archaeology, Classics, East Asian Studies, showing how the Dana Lee, who English, French and Italian, German, Near records of the defended her dis- Eastern Studies, and Spanish and Portu- Fatimid caliphate, sertation, “At the guese. Pukhovaia is studying early mod- once recovered, Limits of Law: ern Yemeni political and social history, and deciphered, and studied, can help change Necessity in Is- her dissertation examines state-building in our thinking about the medieval Islami- lamic Legal His- Zaydi Yemen during the first period of Ot- cate world and about premodern polities tory, Second/ toman rule (1538–1635). more broadly.” Eighth through Tenth/Sixteenth Shiliwala honored for Excellence in Teach- Cook awarded 2019 Balzan Prize for Is- Centuries,” on ing and Service lamic Studies August 20, 2019, was named a Vis- Ph.D. student Wasim Shiliwala was one iting Fellow in the Program in Islamic Law of just seven graduate students who were at Harvard Law School. Following the fel- awarded a 2019 Teaching Award by the lowship, Lee, whose advisor was Hossein Graduate School in recognition of their Modarressi, Bayard Dodge Professor of outstanding abilities as teachers. The Quin Near Eastern Studies, will join the faculty Morton ’36 Teaching Fellow in the Princ- eton University Writing Program, Shiliwala Class of 1943 University Professor of Near has centered on two main topics: slavery Jonathan Gribetz Promoted to Associate Eastern Studies Michael A. Cook has been and its social impacts on Ottoman Tuni- Professor awarded the 2019 Balzan Prize for Islamic sia and the many effects of transitioning Studies by the International Balzan Foun- from the Ottoman rule to a French colo- Princeton Universi- dation, whose “aim is to promote culture, nial domination in North African societies. ty’s Board of Trust- the sciences and the most meritorious ini- Oualdi teaches courses about colonial and ees has approved tiatives in the cause of humanity, peace postcolonial North Africa, Human Traffick- the promotion of and fraternity among peoples throughout ing in the MENA, and Muslims in Modern Assistant Professor the world.” The citation for the award read: France. Jonathan Gribetz “For the exceptional impact of his work on to Associate Pro- several research areas in Islamic Studies New publication by M’hamed Oualdi fessor with ten- most notably: the study of the origin and ure, effective Sep- early history of Islamic thought, the intel- Associate Professor tember 1, 2019. lectual, social and political history of Islam M’hamed Oualdi’s Gribetz, who came through the ages and the place of Islam in new book, A Slave to Princeton from global history; for the outstanding quality Between Empires: Rutgers in 2014, is a historian of Palestine of his scholarship in depth, temporal and A Transimperial and Israel, the Jewish-Arab encounter, and geographical breadth and methodological History of North Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. He rigour as well as the use of a comparative Africa has been teaches courses about the history of Zion- approach; and for the meticulous philolog- published by Co- ism, Palestine, Israel, Jerusalem, and na- ical analysis of primary sources in Arabic, lumbia University tionalism in the modern Middle East. Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, Press (2020). The South Arabian, and Sanskrit.” Earlier in book investigates Recent Books by NES Alumni the year, Cook had been awarded a Doc- the transimperial torate of Literature by the University of St life of General Husayn, a manumitted slave NES Ph.D.