Orit Bashkin

I am a historian who works on the intellectual, social and cultural history of the modern Middle East. I got my Ph.D. from Princeton University (2004), writing a thesis on Iraqi intellectual history under the supervision of Professors Robert Tignor and Samah Selim, and my BA (1995) and MA (1999) from Tel Aviv University. Since my graduation, I have been working as a professor of modern Middle Eastern history in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. My publications deal with Iraqi history, the history of Iraqi Jews, the Arab cultural revival movement (the nahda) in the late 19th century, and the connections between modern Arab history and Arabic literature. My current research project explores the lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel. My graduate students work on a range of issues: cultural history of Ottoman Iraq, the British mandates in Trans Jordan and Iraq, leisure in the Arab world, Mizrahi women, Syrian diplomacy, the Ottoman press, and Arab political thought. At the University of Chicago, I teach classes on nationalism, colonialism and postcolonialism in the Middle East, on modern Islamic civilization, and on Israeli history.