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Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Awards

Award Recipients, 1982-2007

2007 Humanities
Winner:
Awad Halabi, University of Toronto
"The Transformation of the Prophet Moses Festival in Jerusalem, 1917-1937: From Local and Islamic to Modern and Nationalist Celebration"
Honorable Mention: Sara Scalenghe, Georgetown University
"Being Different: Intersexuality, Blindness, Deafness, and Madness in Ottoman Syria"

2007 Social Sciences
Winner: Max Weiss, Stanford University
"Institutionalizing Sectarianism: Law, Religious Culture, and the Remaking of Shi'i Lebanon, 1920-1947"

2006 Humanities
Winner: Sabri Ates, New York University, "Empires at the Margin: Towards a History of the Ottoman-Iranian Borderland and the Borderland Peoples, 1843-1881."
Winner: Raymond K. Farrin, University of California, Berkeley, "Reading Beyond the Line: Organic Unity in Classical Arabic Poetry"

2006 Social Sciences
Winner: Mona El-Ghobashy, Columbia University, "Taming Leviathan: Constitutionalist Contention in Contemporary Egypt."
Honorable Mention: Sherine F. Hamdy, New York University, "Our Bodies Belong to God: Islam, Medical Science, and Ethical Reasoning in Egyptian LIfe."

2005 Humanities
Winner: Wilson Chacko Jacob, New York University , "Working Out Egypt: Masculinity and Subject Formation between Colonial Modernity and Nationalism, 1870-1940."
Honorable Mention: Tamer el-Leithy, Princeton University, "Coptic Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo, 1293-1524 A.D."

2005 Social Sciences
Winner: Koray Caliskan, New York University, "Making a Global Commodity: The Production of Markets and Cotton in Egypt, Turkey, and the United States."
Honorable Mentions: Laleh Khalili, Columbia University, "Citizens of an Unborn Kingdom: Stateless Palestinian Refugees and Contentious Commemoration" and Kirsten Ann Stilt, Harvard University, "The Muhtasib, Law, and Society in Early Mamluk Cairo and Fustat (648-802/1250-1400)."

2004 Humanities
Winner: Linda G. Jones, University of California, Santa Barbara, The Boundaries of Sin and Communal Identity: Muslim and Christian Preaching and the Transmission of Cultural Identity in Medieval Iberia and the Maghreb (12th - 13th Centuries)
Honorable Mention: Maged S.A. Mikhail, UCLA, Egypt from Late Antiquity to Early Islam: Copts, Melkites, and Muslims shaping a New Society

2004 Social Sciences
Winner: Lara Deeb, University of California, Davis, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety among Islamist Shi’I Muslims in Beirut
Honorable Mention: Oren Kosansky, University of Michigan, All Dear Unto God: Saint, Pilgrimage, and Textual Practice in Jewish Morocco

2003 Humanities
Winner: Leor Halevi, Harvard University, Muhammad’s Grave: Death, Ritual and Society in the Early Islamic World
Winner: Christopher Stone, Princeton University, The Rahbani Nation: Musical Theater and Nationalism in Contemporary Lebanon

2003 Social Sciences
Winner: Gavin D. Brockett, University of Chicago, Betwixt and Between: Turkish Print Culture and the Emergence of a National Identity, 1945-1954
Honorable Mention: James R. McDougall, St. Antony's College, Oxford University, Colonial Words. Nationalism, Islam, and Languages of History in Algeria
Honorable Mention: Tamir Moustafa, University of Washington, Law Versus the State: The Expansion of Constitutional Power in Egypt, 1980-2001

2002 Humanities
Winner: Bogac Ergene, The Ohio State University, Local Court, Community and Justice in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire
Honorable Mention: Shafique N. Virani, Harvard University, Seekers of Union: The Ismailis from the Mongol Debacle to the Eve of the Safavid Revolution

2002 Social Sciences
Winner: Ilana Feldman, Columbia University, Interesting Times, Insecure States: The Work of Government and the Making of Gaza in the British Mandate and the Egyptian Administration, 1917-67
Honorable Mention: W. Flagg Miller, University of MIchigan, Inscribing the Muse: Political Poetry and the Discourse of Circulation in the Yemeni Cassette Industry

2001 Humanities
Winner: John Chalcraft, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University, The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt, 1863–1914
Honorable Mention: James Onley, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, The Infrastructure of Informal Empire: A Study of Britain’s Native Agency in Bahrain c. 1816–1900

2001 Social Sciences
Winner: Jonathan Holt Shannon, Hunter College, Among the Jasmine Trees: Music, Modernity, and the Aesthetics of Authenticity in Contemporary Syria
Honorable Mention: Paul J. Kaldjian, Missouri Southern State College, Urban Food Security and Contemporary Istanbul: Gardens, Bazaars and the Countryside
Honorable Mention: Anthony B. Toth, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, The Transformation of a Pastoral Economy: Bedouin and States in Northern Arabia, 1850–1950

2000 Humanities
Winner: Joseph E. Lowry, University of Pennsylvania, The Legal-Theoretical Content of the Risala of Muhammad B. Idris Al-Shafii
Honorable Mention: Mohammed Shahab Ahmed, Princeton University, The Satanic Verses Incident in the Memory of the Early Muslim Community: An Analysis of the Early Riwayahs and Their Isnads

2000 Social Sciences
Winner: Samer S. Shehata, Princeton University, Plastic Sandals, Tea and Time: Shop Floor Politics and Culture in Egypt
Honorable Mention: Engseng Ho, The University of Chicago, Genealogical Figures in an Arabian Indian Ocean Diaspora

1999 Humanities
Winner: Shirine Hamadeh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The City’s Pleasures: Architectural Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul
Honorable Mention: Khaled Abou El Fadl, Princeton University, The Islamic Law of Rebellion: The Rise and Development of the Juristic Discourses on Insurrection, Insurgency and Brigandage
Honorable Mention: John C. Lamoreaux, Duke University, Dream Interpretation in the Early Medieval Near East

1999 Social Sciences
Winner: Peter C. Hennigan, Cornell University, The Birth of a Legal Institution:The Formation of the Waqf in Third Century A. H. Hanafi Legal Discourse
Honorable Mention: S. Hülya Canbakal, Harvard University, ’Ayntãb at the End of the Seventeenth-Century: A Study of Notables and Urban Politics

1998 Humanities
Winner: Marion Holmes Katz, University of Chicago, Purified Companions: The Development of the Islamic Law of Ritual Purity
Honorable Mention: Heather J. Sharkey, Princeton University Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism in the Northern Sudan, 1898-1956

1998 Social Sciences
Winner: Joseph Andoni Massad, Columbia University, Identifying the Nation: The Juridical and Military Bases of Jordanian National Identity
Honorable Mention: Mona L. Russell, Georgetown University, Creating the New Woman: Consumerism, Education, & National Identity in Egypt, 1863–1922

1997 Humanities
Winner: Paul M. Cobb, University of Chicago, White Banners: Contention in ’Abbasid Syria, 750–877
Honorable Mention: Albrecht Hofheinz, University of Bergen, Internalizing Islam: Shaykh Muhammad Majdhub, Scriptural Islam, and Local Context in the Early Nineteenth-Century Sudan

1997 Social Sciences
Winner: Joshua M. Landis, Princeton University, Nationalism and the Politics of Za‘ama: The Collapse of Republican Syria, 1945–1949
Honorable Mention: Farha Ghannam, University of Texas at Austin, Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo

1996 Humanities
Winner: Najwa Al-Qattan, Harvard University, Dhimmis in the Muslim Court: Documenting Justice in Ottoman Damascus, 1775–1860
Honorable Mention: Cynthia Robinson, University of Pennsylvania, Palace Architecture and Ornament in the “Courtly” Discourse of the Muluk al-Tawa’if: Metaphor and Utopia

1996 Social Sciences
Winner: Samuel Wolfe Kaplan, University of Chicago, Education and the Politics of National Culture in a Turkish Community, Circa 1990
Honorable Mention: Lisa Judith Wedeen, University of California, Berkeley, The Politics of Spectacle: Discipline, Resistance, and National Community in Syria
Honorable Mention: James Long Whitaker, University of Durham, The Union of Demeter with Zeus: Agriculture and Politics in Modern Syria

1995 Humanities
Honorable Mention: Marlis J. Saleh, University of Chicago, Government Relations with the Coptic Community in Egypt during the Fatimid Period (358–567 A.H./969–1171 C.E.)
Honorable Mention: Muhammad Qasim Zaman, McGill University, Early ‘Abbasid Religious Policies and the Proto-Sunni ’Ulama’

1995 Social Sciences
Winner: Lisa Hajjar, The American University, Authority, Resistance and the Law: A Study of the Israeli Military Court System in the Occupied Territories
Honorable Mention: Mohameden Ould-Mey, University of Kentucky, Global Restructuring and Peripheral States: The Stick and the Carrot in Mauritania

1994 Humanities
Winner: Kathleen Malone O’Connor, University of Pennsylvania, The Alchemical Creation of Life (takwin) and Other Concepts of Genesis in Medieval Islam
Honorable Mention: Saleh Said Agha, University of Toronto, The Agents and Forces that Toppled the Umayyad Caliphate

1994 Social Sciences
Winner: Gokhan Cetinsaya, University of Manchester, The Ottoman Administration of Iraq, 1890–1908
Winner: Armando Salvatore, European University Institute, The Making (and Unmaking) of ‘Political Islam’

1993 Humanities
Winner: Matthew S. Gordon, Columbia University, The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turkish Community of Samarra (218-264 A.H./833–877 C.E.)

1993 Social Sciences
Winner: Deborah A. Kapchan, University of Pennsylvania, Women in the Marketplace: Transitional Economies and Feminine Discursive Domains in Morocco
Winner: Rayed Krimly, The George Washington University, The Political Economy of Rentier States: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia in the Oil Era, 1950–1990
Honorable Mention: Andrew J. Shryock, University of Michigan, History and Historiography Among the Belqa Tribes of Jordan

1992 Humanities
Winner: Devin J. Stewart, University of Pennsylvania, Twelver Shi’i Jurisprudence and its Struggle With Sunni Consensus
Honorable Mention: Lawrence Goddard Potter, Columbia University, The Kart Dynasty of Herat: Religion and Politics in Medieval Iran

1992 Social Sciences
Winner: Leyla Neyzi, Cornell University, Beyond “Tradition” and “Resistance”: Kinship and Economic Development in Mediterranean Turkey
Honorable Mention: Haggay Ram, New York University, Islamic Symbolism: The Ideology of the Islamic Revolution in Iran as Reflected in Friday Communal Sermons, 1979–1989

1991 Humanities
Winner: Nasser Omar Rabbat, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Citadel of Cairo 1176–1341: Reconstructing Architecture from Texts
Winner: Dwight F. Reynolds, University of Pennsylvania, Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: Composition and Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition of Northern Egypt
Honorable Mention: Jamal Elias, Yale University, Sufi Thought and Practice in the Teachings of ’Ala’ad-dawla as- Simnani
Honorable Mention: Yvonne Seng, University of Chicago, The Uskudar Estates (Tereke) as Records of Everyday Life in an Ottoman Town, 1521–1524

1991 Social Sciences
Winner: Virginia H. Aksan, University of Toronto, Ahmed Resmi Efendi, 1700–1783: The Making of An Early Ottoman Reformer
Honorable Mention: Michael Dumper, University of Exeter, Muslim Institutions and the Israeli State: Muslim Religious Endowments (Waqfs) in Israel and the Occupied Territories, 1948–1987
Honorable Mention: Steven Heydemann, University of Chicago, Successful Authoritarianism: The Social and Structural Origins of Populist Authoritarian Rule in Syria, 1946–1963

1990 Humanities
Winner: Vincent Cornell, University of California, Los Angeles, Mirrors in Prophethood: The Evolving Image of the Spiritual Master in the Western Maghrib from the Origins of Sufism to the End of the 16th Century
Honorable Mention: Daniel Carl Peterson, University of California, Los Angeles, Cosmogony and the Ten Separated Intellects in the Rahat al-Aql of Hamid al-Din al Kirmani

1990 Social Sciences
Winner: Diane Singerman, Princeton University, Avenues of Participation: Family and Politics in Urban Quarters of Cairo
Honorable Mention: Maha Azzam, University of Exeter, Islamic Oriented Protest Groups in Egypt 1971–1981: Theory, Dogma and Politics
Honorable Mention: Kevin Joseph Lourie, Brown University, The Negotiation of Orthodoxy: An Ethnographic Study of the Assimilation Strategies of Religious Soviet Jewish Immigrants to Israel

1989 Humanities
Winner: Smadar Lavie, University of California, Berkeley, The Poetics of Military Occupation: Mzeina Allegories of Bedouin Identity under Israeli and Egyptian Rule
Winner: Christopher Schurman Taylor, Princeton University, The Cult of the Saints in Late Medieval Egypt

1989 Social Sciences
Winner: John Francis Foran, University of California, Berkeley, Social Structure and Social Changes in Iran from 1500 to 1979
Honorable Mention: Philip Julian Robins, University of Exeter, The Consolidation of Hashimite Power in Jordan, 1921–1946
Honorable Mention: Michael John Reimer, Georgetown University, Administration and Society in Alexandria, Egypt, 1807–1882

1988 Humanities
Winner: Ola Abdelaziz Abouzeid, University of Toronto, A Comparative Study Between the Political Theories of al-Farabi and the Brethren of Purity

1988 Social Sciences
Winner: Rahma Bourgia, University of Manchester, State and Rural Society in Morocco: The Qemmour and Qayan Confederations in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Honorable Mention: William Charles Young, University of California, Los Angeles, The Days of Joy: A Structuralist Anaylsis of Weddings Among the Rashaayda Arabs of Sudan

1987 Social Sciences
Winner: Nathan J. Brown, Princeton University, Peasants Against the State: The Political Activity of the Egyptian Peasantry, 1882–1952
Honorable Mention: Wilhelmina Jansen, Catholic University of Nijmegen, Women Without Men: Gender and Marginality in an Algerian Town

1986 Humanities
Winner: Sam Isaac Gellens, Columbia University, Scholars and Travellers: The Social History of Early Muslim Egypt, 218–487/ 833–1099
Honorable Mention: Eran Fraenkel, University of Pennsylvania, Skopje from the Serbian to Ottoman Empires: Conditions for the Appearance of a Balkan Muslim Society
Honorable Mention: Daniel Goffman, University of Chicago, Izmir as a Commercial Center: The Impact of Western Trade on an Ottoman Port, 1570–1650

1986 Social Sciences
Winner: Mary Hegland, State University of New York, Binghamton, Imam Khomaini’s Village: Recruitment to Revolution

1985 Humanities
Winner: Susan Slyomovics, University of California, Berkeley, The Merchant of Art: An Egyptian Hilali Oral Epic Poet in Performance
Honorable Mention: Juan Campo, University of Chicago, Muslim Homes: The Religious Significance of Domestic Space
Honorable Mention: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, University of Toronto, Perceptions of the Christians in Qur’anic Tafsir
Honorable Mention: Daniel J. Schroeter, University of Manchester, Merchants and Pedlars of As-Sawira: A Social History of a Moroccan Trading Town (1844–1886)

1984 Humanities
Winner: Zeynep Celik, University of California, Berkeley, The Impact of Westernization on Istanbul’s Urban Form, 1838–1908

1984 Social Sciences
Winner: Lila Abu-Lughod, Harvard University, Honor, Modesty, and Poetry in a Bedouin Society: Ideology and Experience among Awlad ’Ai of Egypt
Honorable Mention: Laurence O. Michalak, University of California, Berkeley, The Changing Weekly Markets of Tunisia: A Regional Analysis
Honorable Mention: Timothy Mitchell, Princeton University, As if the World Were Divided in Two: The Birth of Politics in Turn-of-the-Century Cairo
Honorable Mention: Mary C. Wilson, Oxford University, King Abdullah of Jordan: A Political Biography

1983 Humanities
Winner: Margaret L. Caton, University of California, Los Angeles, The Classical Tasnif: A Genre of Persian Vocal Music
1983 Social Sciences
Winner: Beatrice F. Manz, Harvard University, Politics and Control under Tamerlane

1982 Humanities
Winner: Cornell H. Fleischer, Princeton University, Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali Efendi, 1541–1600: A Study in Ottoman Historical Consciousness

1982 Social Sciences
Winner: Dilworth Parkinson, University of Michigan, Terms of Address in Egyptian Arabic
Winner: Karen A. Rasler, Florida State University, Conflict and Escalation in Lebanon

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