DAHLIA E. M.

GUBARA
Assistant Professor, Coordinator (Chair)
Department of History, Koç University
Rumelifeneri Yolu, Sariyer
34450, Istanbul, Turkey
Tel: +90 212 338 1000
E-Mail: dmgubara@ku.edu.tr

Education

2014: Ph.D. Department of History, Columbia University, New York, USA

[Dissertation title: Al-Azhar and the Orders of Knowledge – Advisor: Richard W. Bulliet; Dissertation Committee:
Rashid Khalidi, Marwa Elshakry, Timothy Mitchell, Mahmood Mamdani]
2007: M.Phil. Department of History, Columbia University
[Examination fields: Islam and Muslims in Sudanic Africa; Modern History of Egypt and the Sudan; Encounters with
the Past: Travel Writing and the Historical Discipline; Law, Culture and Society in Late Ottoman History]
2005: M.A. Department of History, Columbia University [Concentration: Islam, Middle East, Africa]
1999: B.A. First Class Honours. Faculty of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS- University of
London) [Concentration: Comparative law and jurisprudence, Islamic law – classical to modern]

Completed training programs and diplomas:

§ 2022: Foundation Course and Introductory Lectures, British Psychoanalytical Association, UK
§ 2015: Introduction to Islamic Codicology and Book-making (Islamic Manuscript Association (TIMA)
UK; Archives and Special Collections, Jafet Library, American University of Beirut)
§ 1999: Being a Welfare Officer and Effective Casework Skills, National Union of Students, London, UK

Academic Positions, Grants, Awards, Fellowships and Affiliations

2021- present: Assistant Professor, History Department, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
(2023): Visiting Scholar, Dept. of Asian, African & Mediterranean Studies, University of Naples L’Orientale, Italy
(2022): Erasmus+ Worldwide Teaching Mobility, Law Faculty, University of Cape Town, South Africa
2019-20: Visiting Assistant Professor, College of Social Sciences & Humanities, Koç University
2015-21: Assistant Professor, Civilization Studies Program, American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon
2014-5: Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Arts and Humanities, AUB, Lebanon
2013-14: Postdoctoral Fellow, Orient-Institut Beirut, Lebanon
2010-11: Doris G. Quinn Foundation Dissertation Writing Fellow, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Columbia
University, New York, USA
2009-10: International Dissertation Research Fellowship - Social Science Research Council, New York, USA
2009: Visiting Research Scholar, Centre for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway
2009: Research Associate, American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt
2008: Shawn Symposium Award for New Directions in History, Columbia University, New York, USA

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2008: Graduate Research Fellowship, Institute of Religion, Culture and Public Life, Columbia University
2004-9: Richard Hofstadter Fellowship, Department of History, Columbia University, New York, USA

Research and Publications

- [Co-edited with A. Wick] Adab as a Way of Life: An Appreciation of Tarif Khalidi, Guest Edited Special Issue:
Journal of Arabic Literature, 53/3-4 (2022)

- [Co-authored with A. Wick] “Adab as a Way of Life: Towards an Ethical Turn in History,” Journal of Arabic
Literature, 53/3-4 (2022): 195-215

- “Muḥammad al-Kashnawī and the Everyday Life of the Occult,” in Ousmane O. Kane (ed.) Islamic
Scholarship in Africa. New Directions and Global Contexts (James Currey; Boydell & Brewer, 2021): 41-60

- [French Translation]: “Muḥammad al-Kashnāwī et le quotidien de l’occulte,” in Ousmane O. Kane (ed.

trans.) Erudition islamique en Afrique. Nouvelles Pistes de recherche et contexte mondial (Dakar: CERDIS, 2021):
40-60.

- “Revisiting Race and Slavery through Abd al-Rahman al-Jabati’s ‘Ajai’b al-athar,” Comparative Studies of
South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 38/2, (2018): 230-245

- "Al-Azhar in the Bibliographic Imagination," Journal of Arabic Literature, 43/2-3 (2012): 299-335

Book Reviews:
- "Race and Slavery in the Middle East: Histories of Trans-Saharan Africans in Nineteenth-Century Egypt,
Sudan and the Ottoman Mediterranean, (Eds.) Terence Walz and Kenneth Cuno, 2010," Der Islam, 88/1
(2012): 205-7

- "The World of Murtada al-Zabidi (1732-91): Life, Networks and Writings by Stefan Reichmuth, 2009," Arab
Studies Journal, 19/1 (2011): 142-6

- "The Four Imams: Their Lives, Works and their Schools of Thought by Muhammad Abu Zahra, Eds.
Abdalhaqq Bewley And M. I. Waley, Trans. Aisha Bewley, 2000," Journal of Qur’anic Studies, 4/1(2002):1-4

Reports:
- "Islam and Elections," Conference Report, Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.- The West, New York University, 2004
[Co-authored with A. Stanton]
- "Islam and Diversity: Bridging the Gap," Report, Women Engaged in Bridge Building, 2004
- "Beit Al-Qur’an, Manama, Bahrain: Notes, Reports and Correspondence," Journal of Qur’anic Studies 3/1(2001):
134-36

In Progress/Under Review:
- The Impossible University: al-Azhar between Islamic Tradition and Colonial Modernity – book manuscript
- ‘When the Center Cannot Hold’: Modern Statehood, Global Islam, and the End of the Ottoman Caliphate – Guest
edited special issue for European Journal of Turkish Studies.

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- “Shifting Geographies: Travel and Translation beyond the Ottoman South, al-Tunisi’s Tashhidh al-adhhan bi-
sirat bilad al-‘Arab wa’l-Sudan and the Tercüme-i risale-i Sudan”for Special Issue on “Concepts of Difference:
Historicizing ‘Race’ and ‘Religion’ in the Modern Middle East,” edited by Jean-Paul Ghobriel and Henry
Clements (Oxford University), Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (CSSAAME) –
commissioned journal article

- Virtuous Narratives: The Many Lives of Luqmān al-Ḥakīm in the Making of Islamic Tradition – ERC proposal

Research Networks and Collaborations:

- Maktaba: Digital Collection of African Arabic Manuscripts in Translation [Partner institutions: University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University]

- Arabicities of Istanbul [Partner institutions: Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes (IFEA); Swedish
Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII), Boğaziçi University, Koç University]

- Steering Committee Member (2018-20): Decolonization, the Disciplines, and the University – Andrew
Mellon Foundation Supranational Program Grant. [Partner institutions: University of Ghana; Legon
Centre for the Study of Social Sciences, Kolkata, India; Ifriqiyya Colloquium, Columbia University,
New York; Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Kampala; American University of Beirut]

Teaching

Undergraduate courses:
- Introduction to Islamic Intellectual History – [two-part sequence]:
§ Introduction to Islamic Intellectual History (I): Classical Islamic Thought
§ Introduction to Islamic Intellectual History (II): Early Modern - Modern Iterations
- Refiguring Islam in Modernity (1850-1976)
- Archetypes Across Texts and Traditions
- Introduction to Islamic Law
- The Occult Sciences in Islamic Thought and Practice
- “Exterminate All the Brutes”: Race, Colonialism, and the Writing of History

Multi-disciplinary Courses in Liberal Arts Core Program:

- Dreams, Death, Desire
- Mythology and Religion: Homofictus, the Story-telling Animal
- Faith and Power: Cultural Encounters across the Monotheistic Traditions
- The Ancient Near East and Classical Civilizations
- The Monotheistic Traditions and their Classical Antecedents
- Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Civilizations

Graduate Courses:
- Thesis Seminar: Comparative Studies in History and Sociology
- Special Topics in Intellectual History: The Islamic Tradition
- The Qur’an in History

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 - Islam, Law, History
- Islamic Civilizations: Qur’an and Fiqh
- Muslim Personal and Family Laws in the Middle East and Africa: A Historical Perspective (Guest Seminar -
Human Rights, Legal Pluralism, Religion and Culture, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, South
Africa – Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility 2022)
- Islamic Intellectual History from the Margins (Guest Seminar, Department of Historical Studies,
University of Cape Town, South Africa – Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility 2022)

Joint Faculty and Student Interdisciplinary Reading Seminars:

- The Promise of the Prophetic (Arts and Humanities Initiative, American University of Beirut, 2014-15)
- Reading Talal Asad in Beirut (Arts and Humanities Initiative, American University of Beirut, 2014)

Other Teaching Experience:

Jul. 2024: Visiting Lecturer, International Baccalaureate Summer School, NUN Schools, Istanbul [“History of
Islamic Thought and Culture”]
2005-07: Teaching Assistant, Department of History, Columbia University, New York [Islamo- Christian
Civilization; Main Currents in African History; Islam in Africa; The Modern Middle East]
2001-03: Teaching Assistant, Faculty of Laws, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of
London [Islamic law; Legal Systems of the Middle East and North Africa history]
2001-02: Visiting Lecturer, United World College of the Atlantic (UWC), Wales, UK. [Theory of Knowledge;
World Religions; History and Politics of Western Asia]

Theses/Dissertations:
Advisor: Competing Contenders: The Fatimids, Byzantines and Umayyads of Córdoba, 909-1171 A.D. (Ph.D.
History, Koç University – in progress)
Futuwwa (Chivalry) in Medieval and Early Modern Islamic Thought and Practice (M.A. History, Koç
University – in progress)
Modern Islam Islamic Political Thought in 19-20th Century (BA thesis, College of Social Sciences &
Humanities, Koç University)
Towards a Genealogy of Moderate Islamism (M.A. Islamic Studies, American University of Beirut)
Reader:
Unveiling the Language of the Cosmos: The Role of Arabic-to-Turkish Translations in Ottoman
Astronomy (Ph.D. History, Koç University – in progress)
Mediterranean Crossroads: The Catalan Company’s Role In XIVth-Century Anatolia (M.A. History,
Koç University, 2024)
The Social Sciences in the Training of the Scholars of Islam (M.A. Sociology and History, American
University of Beirut)
Justice for Whom? A Discourse Analysis of Transitional Justice in Syria (M.A. Arab and Middle
Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut)
Non-Violent Jihad: An Immanent Critique (M.A. Department of Sociology, Egyptology and
Anthropology, American University in Cairo

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Conferences, Workshops, Lectures and Presentations

- When the center cannot hold: Statehood, Global Islam, and the End of the Ottoman Caliphate, (Istanbul, Mar. 3-
4, 2024) [Co-organized with Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul; Institut Français d’Études
Anatoliennes – IFEA; Boğaziçi University]
- Racialization: A Plurality of Paradigms? (Pavia, Italy; June 2023) [co-organized by European Union Center
at the University of Illinois, University of Paris 8 and Almo Collegio Borromeo]
- Teaching with West African Manuscript Collections: Setting Up Joint ISITA-CSMC Education & Research
(Evanston, Chicago, May 2022) [organized by Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa and
Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University, and Centre for the Study of
Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg]
- Empire of Babel: Ottoman Literary Modernities and their Afterlives (Istanbul, Mar. 2022) [Co-organized with
Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul; Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes – IFEA; Boğaziçi
University]
- Adab as a Way of Life: An Appreciation of Tarif Khalidi (Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies,
American University of Beirut – Beirut, 2018) [Co-organized with Alexis Wick]
- Season of Migration to the North: Commemorating Tayeb Salih, Half a Century On (Civilization Studies
Program, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Center for Arts and Humanities, American University of
Beirut – Beirut, 2017) [Co-organized with Sudanese Social and Cultural Club in Beirut]
- Maritime Worlds of Islam (American University of Beirut and University of Exeter, UK – Beirut, 2016)
- Liberal Arts and the Modern University: The Role and Place of the Core Curriculum – AUB, Lebanon and
Beyond (CVSP Forum 2016 – State of the Field Workshop, Center for Arts and Humanities, American
University of Beirut – Beirut, 2016)
- Majālis in Islamic Studies, monthly research colloquium in Islamic Studies (Center for Arab and Middle
East Studies, American University of Beirut – Beirut, 2014-8)
- The Idea of Islam Today: Towards Non-Orientalist Genealogies, An International Symposium in Honor of Talal
Asad, American University of Beirut – Beirut, 2014) [Co-organized with Alexis Wick]
- International Summer Academy on Language, Science and Aesthetics – Articulations of Subjectivity and
Objectivity in the Modern Middle East, North Africa, South and Southeast Asia (Max Weber Stiftung, Forum
Transregionale Studien and Orient-Institut Beirut – Beirut, 2014)
- Edward Said: A Continuing Legacy, International commemorative conference (School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London – London, 2004

Papers and Invited Lectures:

- “Shifting Geographies: Travel and Translation beyond the Ottoman South, al-Tunisi’s Tashhidh al-adhhan
bi-sirat bilad al-‘Arab wa’l-Sudan and the Tercüme-i risale-i Sudan,” Workshop on Religion, Race, and Concepts
of Difference in the Modern Middle East (University of Oxford – June, 2024)
- “Muḥammad al-Kashnāwī’s Durr al-manzūm: An Eighteenth-Century Exposition of al-Rāzī’s Sirr al-
maktūm,” Spellbound: A Workshop on Arabic and Persian Handbooks of Practical Magic (Yale University –
April 2024)
- “My Research and its Significance to the Field of Middle East History” (Kings College London– May 2023)
- “Returning To Luqmān al-Ḥakīm: Wisdom, Subjectivity and Islamic Tradition.” Invited lecture: Institute for
the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) (Northwestern University – Evanston, 2022)
- “Institutional Research Plan, American University of Beirut,” Decolonization, the Disciplines and the
University, Mellon Foundation Supranational Program Grant (Makerere University – Kampala, 2019)

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- “Al-Azhar Revisited,” Decolonization, the Disciplines and the University, Mellon Foundation Supranational
Program Grant (Makerere University – Kampala, 2019)
- “Introduction to Classical Islamic Thought,” University Common Lecture (Civilization Studies Program,
American University of Beirut – Beirut, 2015-2018)
- “Black Magic, White Magic, and the Man from Katsina,” Texts, Knowledge, and Practice: The Meaning of
Scholarship in Muslim Africa (Harvard Divinity School – Cambridge MA, 2017)
- “Mapping the Many Lives of Luqmān al-Ḥakīm,” Typology – Exegetical Strategies of Reenactment and Fulfilment
in the Milieu of the Qur’an and its Exegesis, Project “From Logos to Kalām” of the Collaborative Research
Center 980 – “Episteme in Motion” (Freie Universität Berlin – Berlin, 2015)
- “Tales of Bondage, Bonded Tales. Some Thoughts on the Historiography of Arab- Islamic Slavery,”
Trans-African Slaveries Research Network – Ifrīqiyya Colloquium (Institute for African Studies, Columbia
University – New York, 2015)
- “Beyond Freedom: Reading Labour and Subjectivity in Ottoman Egypt,” (Department of Middle Eastern,
South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University – New York, 2015)
- “Situating Science: The View from 17th-18th-century Cairo,” Research Seminar, International Summer
Academy on Language, Science and Aesthetics – Articulations of Subjectivity and Objectivity in the Modern
Middle East, North Africa, South and Southeast Asia (Orient-Institut Beirut– Beirut, 2014)
- “Disciplines of Knowledge, Disciplines of the Self: Re-reading Azhari Reforms,” Public Lecture Series:
Orient-Institut Beirut – Beirut, 2013)
- “On Searching for Africans in al-Jabartī’s‘Ajā’ib al-āthar,” Ifrīqiyya Colloquium (Institute for African
Studies, Columbia University – New York, 2013)
- “Roots, Routes, and the Philological Determinants of Race,” Textual Practices Beyond Europe: 1500-1900 –
Zukunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship (Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin;
Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, American University in Cairo – Cairo, 2010)
- “Ordering Knowledge, Representing Civilizations: the Case of the al-Azhar Library,” Textual Practices
Beyond Europe: 1500-1900 – Zukunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship (Forum
Transregionale Studien, Berlin; Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, American University in
Cairo – Cairo, 2010)
- “The Spaces of Modern Time: al-Azhar and its Environs in the ‘Age of Decline’ (1600-1800),” international
symposium on Inhitat – its Influences and Persistence in the Writing of Arab Cultural History (American
University of Beirut; University of Münster; Orient-Institut Beirut – Beirut, 2010)
- “Charting Knowledge: Geographies, Trajectories and the Eighteenth-Century al- Azhar,” workshop on
Knowledge and Modes of Transmission: Islamic Africa and its Connectivities (University of Cape Town;
University of Bergen – Lamu, Kenya, 2010)

Other Work Experience

2004: Assistant Director, Festival of Muslim Cultures 2006, London, UK.

2003-4: Researcher, The Africa Centre, London, UK.
2002-3: Research Editor, Richmond Law & Tax Ltd., Richmond-Upon-Thames, UK.
2003: Rapporteur, “Civil Society and Representation,” Women’s Empowerment and Dialogue Between
Civilisations, UNESCO, AMAR, British Council and the European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium.
2001: Covering Editorial Assistant, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, Centre of Islamic Studies, School of Oriental
and African Studies, London, UK.
2000: Programme Assistant, Crimes of Honour Project, Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, School of
Oriental and African Studies, London, UK.

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1999-2000: President, Students’ Union, SOAS, University of London, UK.

Record of Service

2023 – Coordinator (Chair), History Department, Koç University

2022 – Course Committee – HIST 502: ‘Research Methods in History,’ History Department, Koç University
2021 – Student Advising, Department of History, College of Social Sciences & Humanities (CSSH), Koç
University
2022 – Working Group for Teaching Evaluation Improvement, CSSH, Koç University
2017-18: University Senator, Faculty of Arts and Sciences American University of Beirut (AUB)
2016-17: Chair of Course Coordination Committee (205), Civilization Studies Program, AUB
2016-18: Board of Graduate Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, AUB
Board of General Education, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, AUB
Steering Committee, Center for Arts and Humanities, AUB
Advisor: AUB Student Club of Witchcraft and Wizardry, AUB
2015-18: University Library Committee, AUB
2016-17: Freshmen Advisor, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, AUB

Referees

Richard Bulliet – Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Columbia University.

413 Fayerweather Hall, 1180 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 2527, New York, NY 10027, USA
Tel.: +1 212 854-4646, Email: rwb3@columbia.edu

Rashid Khalidi – Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University.
401 Fayerweather Hall, 1180 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 2527, New York, NY 10027, USA
Tel.: +1 212 854-4646, Email: rik2101@columbia.edu

John Meloy – Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Arab and Islamic
Civilizations, American University in Cairo.
AUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74, New Cairo 11835, Egypt
Tel.: +20 2 2615 1000, Email: John.Meloy@aucegypt.edu.

Ousmane O. Kane – Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary Islamic Religion and Society
Harvard Divinity School.
45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 , USA
Tel.: +1 617.495.5761, Email: okane@hds.harvard.edu

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