Zeinab Abul-Magd

Education

• BS in Political Science, Cairo University, 1996
• MA in Arab Studies & Islamic Law, Georgetown University, 2003
• Doctor of Philosophy, Georgetown University, 2008

Biography

Zeinab Abul-Magd is an Associate Professor of Middle Eastern history. She received her PhD in history and political economy from Georgetown University, in 2008, and her MA in Arab Studies and Islamic Law also from Georgetown University, in 2003. She received her B.S. in Political Science from Cairo University, Egypt, in 1996. She specializes in the socio-economic and military histories of the Middle East, from the rise of Islam until the present day.

Her recent books include Militarizing the Nation: The Army, Business, and Revolution in Egypt, 1952-2015 (New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming 2016), and Businessmen in Arms: How the Military and Other Armed Groups Profit in the MENA Region, co-editor with Elke Grawert (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). Her first book, Imagined Empires: A History of Revolt in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), is the winner of MESA’s Roger Owen Book Award in economic history in 2015, and its Arabic translation is titled Imbraturiyyat Mutakhayalla: Tarikh al-Thawra fi Sa‘id Misr, 1500-2011 (Cairo: The National Council of Translation, 2015).

Course Topics

Her classes at Oberlin College cover a wide range of topics relevant to Middle Eastern classical and modern history, as well as contemporary realities. They include

•  Wars, borders, and displacement in the Middle East
•  State, Empire, and Revolution in the Middle East
•  Militaries, Militias, and Jihad in the Middle East
•  Colonial and Post-Colonial State Formation and Transformations in the Middle East
• Globalization and its Discontents in the Middle East
• U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
• Economic History of the early modern and modern Middle East
• Islamic Law & Society (focusing on women and gender and holy wars)