The Middle East Studies Program (MESP) is so excited to be welcoming all our newly hired colleagues in Political Science, History, and Gender & Women’s Studies. These hires not only complements existing strengths by addressing an area not well represented on campus, but also establishes a nexus for innovative and compelling research on the cutting edge of work on the Middle East.
AARON ROCK-SINGER is a historian of the modern Middle East, with a research focus on 20th century Islamic movements and states. In his first book, Practicing Islam in Egypt: Print Media and Islamic Revival (Cambridge, 2019), he drew on ideologically diverse Islamic magazines from this period to chart the rise of an Islamic Revival in 1970s Egypt within a larger global story of religious contestation and change.
MARWA SHALABY’s research areas are comparative politics, democratization and research methodology. Her work focuses primarily on the intersection of the politics of authoritarianism, and women in politics. Her research also aims to explicate the micro-dynamics and outcomes of electoral institutions under competitive authoritarianism, mainly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In addition, she is working on a cross-national project exploring the drivers of political tolerance in non-democratic and transitioning states.
Steven Brooke is a comparativist by training with a regional specialization in the Middle East. Substantively, his research agenda encompasses political Islam, authoritarian regimes and oppositions, sectarianism, and social service provision. His first book, Winning Hearts and Votes: Social Services and the Islamist Political Advantage (Cornell University Press in 2018) is about non-state social service provision in authoritarian regimes,with a particular emphasis on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.