Graduate Studies
Graduate Student Profiles
GRADUATE ISLAMIC STUDIES STUDENTS: There are graduate students with interests in Islamic Studies in many departments and programs at Duke. One important goal of these profiles is to build community and promote engagement among Islamic Studies graduate students by increasing your visibility to each other. E-mail disc@duke.edu to be added to this list.
Islamic Studies graduate students (from left): Ali Mian, Brett Wilson, Kenan Tekin, Mashal Saif, Youshaa Patel, and SherAli Tareen with Professor Ebrahim Moosa (center) at the 2008 American Academy of Religion annual meeting .
ISLAMIC STUDIES GRADUATE STUDENT PROFILES:
AHMED ABDEL-WAHAB, Economics
M.A student
Research Interests: Economic Development; Islamic Finance; Comparative Religion; Middle East
ATTIYA AHMAD, Cultural Anthropology
Ph.D. candidate; degree expected 2009.
Research Interests: Religious movements and media; Islamic Da'wa; Conversion; Political Economy, Migration Domestic Work; GCC States; South Asia
Dissertation Title: Muslim Belongings and Becomings: Migrant DOmestic Workers and Islamic Da'wa in Kuwait
ANNE-MARIE ANGELO, History
Ph.D. candidate, 5th year
Research Interests: Foreign perceptions of th e U.S., 1945-present; History of the modern Middle East; Arabic language and cultures
Dissertation Title: The Wide Black Power Movement: The Black Panthers of the United Kingdom and Israel, 1967-75
ANDREW BENTZ, Political Science
Ph.D. candidate, 3nd year
Research Interests: North Africa and Islam's influence in political process
DANIEL BESSNER, History
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: Modernity; secularism; intellectuals and the state.
FAHAD BISHARA, History
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: Muslim merchant networks in the Indian Ocean; Middle East and East African economic history; Islamic commercial law.
KIMBERLY BOWLER, History
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: French military administration in 19th-century Algeria; history of the Middle East.
KATHERINE CALHOUN, Religion
M.A. Candidate
JATIN DUA, Cultural Anthropology
Ph.D. Candidate
Research Interests: Law and anthropology; mobility and migration; Indian Ocean (Africa and the Middle East)
BRIAN GOLDSTONE, Cultural Anthropology
Ph.D. candidate; ABD
Research Interests: Secularism and liberal modernity; violence; ethical formation; religious subjectivity; political theory and theology; West Africa
DAN HOLODNIK, Religion
M.A. Candidate, 2nd year
NADIA KHAN, Religion
M.A., 1st year
Research Interests: Islamic law; Islamic educatin; Maliki fiqh
Publications: "Religious Advocates: A Force in Politics," 2007 Undergraduate Fellows Report, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University.
SOHAIB KHAN, Religion
M.A., 1st year
DANIEL KSELMAN, Political Science
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: Political party organizations in Turkish politics; Elections and conflict in the Middle East; Game theoretical modeling
Dissertation Title: Proportional Representation, Political Parties, and Political Conflict in Turkey
SUSAN LANGFORD, Religion
M.A., 2nd year
Research Interests: Islamic Law and Human Rights
ERIC LORBER, Political Science
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: Nuclear Weapons Declaratory Policy, Networked Terrorist Organizations, and Hypocrisy Costs in U.S. Foreign Policy
SCOTT LUSTIG, Economics
Ph.D. candidate
ALI ALTAF MIAN, Religion
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: Contemporary Theories of Interpretation and Islamic Studies; Sufism and Psychoanalysis in South Asia; Gender theory and Islamicate texts and contexts
Ali Mian's summary of The Fifth Annual Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic Studies Conference was published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol 25 Summer 2008 Num 3.
Invoking Islamic Rights in British India, The Muslim World (2009)
ERIK NORELL, Religion
M.A., 2nd year
Research interests: Islam and Economic Development, Religious Conflict, Wahabism
FIRAT ORUC, Literature
Ph.D.; Degree received 2009
SENAY OZDEN, Cultural Anthropology
Ph.D. Candidate; ABD
Dissertation Title: Borders of Belonging: Palestinian Refugees and Politics of Resistance in Syria
KETAKI PANT, History
Ph.D. Candidate
Research Interests: Gujarati Muslims in the Indian Ocean trade.
YOUSHAA PATEL, Religion
Ph.D. Candidate
JAMES I. PEARCE, Law & Public Policy
JD / LLM: International and Comparative Law
Research Interests: Comparative legal systems incorporating Islamic legal provisions; Intersections and tensions between Islamic thought and international human rights law; regional interests in Turkey, Egypt, and Sudan
MASHAL SAIF, Religion
Ph.D. Candidate
Research Interests: Islam in contemporary South Asia; shifts in legal religious imaginaries; Hanafi law, jurisconsults (muftis) and juridical pronouncements (fatwas)
NATHAN SCHICK, Religion
M.A. Islamic Studies
Research Interests: Islam and Globalization
BARTON SCOTT, Religion
Ph.D. candidate; ABD
Research interests: Islam in South Asia; Colonialism; Religious reform movements; Hindu-Muslim religious identities; genealogies of ideological critique, secularity, and "religion" as a comparative category; media,, religion and the public sphere; postcolonial theory; gender and sexuality studies
Dissertation title: Divine Exposures: Skepticism, Scandal, and the Public Sphere in Colonial India
MOEED SUFI, Religion
M.A., 1st year
SHERALI TAREEN, Religion
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: 18th and 19th century Muslim reform movements in South Asia; Islam and the politics of authenticity; early modern Muslim interpretations of Hinduism
Secondary Research Interests: Modern Arabic literature; South Asian Buddhism
Dissertation Title: Change We Can't Believe In: Reform, Innovation, and the Politics of Authenticity in South Asian Islam
Publications: The Muslim World (July 2009): "Normativity, Heresy, and the Politics of Authenticity in South Asian Islam" (521-552)
KENAN TEKIN, Religion
M.A. Religion
YEKTAN TURKYILMAZ, Cultural Anthropology
Ph.D. candidate; ABD
Dissertation Title: Imagining "Turkey," Creating a Nation: The Politics of Geography and State Formation in Eastern Anatolia, 1908-1938
BRETT WILSON, Religion
Ph.D. candidate; Degree received 2009
Research Interests: Qur'anic Studies; Vernacularization / Translation studies; Islamicate print history; Islam in the Ottoman Empire and modern Tureky; Naqshbandi and Bektashi Sufi orders.
Dissertation Title: The Qur'an After Babel: Qur'an Translation and the Vernacularization of Islam in the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey
SAADIA YACOOB, Religion
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: Usul al-Fiqh/Jurisprudential Methodology; Hanafi law; law and gender.
SEAN ZEIGLER, Political Science
Ph.D. candidate
Research Interests: International relations; Violence and terrorism; Strategic studies
Graduate News and Notes
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Graduate Fellowships Available for Study in Indonesia
Five graduate fellowships wil be awarded to U.S. students to study religion at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Application deadline is October 31, 2008. Click here for information and application forms.