Middle East Studies Program

A lecture by Peter Makhlouf

October 12, 2026 @ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm

Peter Makhlouf’s (postdoctoral fellow at University of Notre Dame) research spans topics ancient, medieval, and modern, and focuses primarily on the German, Arabic, and classical (Latin and Greek) traditions. Recent essays and talks have been devoted to the intersection of Palestinian literature and thought and the German-Jewish tradition.

An Expanded Istifada: Cochlear Implants and Regulating Communication for Deaf Jordanians

October 26, 2026 @ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm

Timothy Y. Loh is an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University. Bringing together medical anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and science and technology studies, his ethnographic research examines sociality, language, and religion in deaf and signing worlds spanning Jordan, Singapore, and the United States.

To Exist as a Problem: Being Black, Being Palestinian

February 22, 2027 @ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm

Drawing on W. E. B. Du Bois’s question, “How does it feel to be a problem?”, Professor Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College) examines the shared experiences of Black and Palestinian people as groups racialized as threats. He argues that anti-Blackness and anti-Palestinian racism are foundational to systems of white and settler dominance, casting Black people as criminals and Palestinians as terrorists to justify oppression.

A lecture by Yasmin Moll

March 29, 2027 @ 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm

Yasmin Moll is an assistant professor of anthropology at University of Michigan. She is an anthropologist of religion and media with a focus on the Middle East as well as a practicing visual ethnographer.