Five College Middle Eastern Studies

Five Colleges, Incorporated

Faculty

Amherst College
Yasmine Hasnaoui is Five College Lecturer in Arabic.

Tariq Jaffer teaches in the Religion Department. His work focuses on the theological discourse that developed in Muslim institutions of learning (madrasas) in the pre-modern period. He is currently investigating the Arabic theological works of the Muslim authors who flourished in Iran and Central Asia in the twelfth through sixteenth centuries.

Monica Ringer teaches in the departments of History and Asian Languages and Civilizations. Her specialty is modern Middle Eastern history, particularly of Iran and the Ottoman Empire.

Hampshire College
Aaron Berman is a historian of Jewish and Arab nationalisms, as well as twentieth-century United States political and intellectual history.

Omar Dahi is an economist specializing in the areas of economic development and international trade, with a focus on South-South economic cooperation, and on the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa.

Salman Hameed is an astronomer and historian of science. He is interested in using perceptions about biological evolution to explore how educated Muslims view the relationship between science and religion.

Sayres Rudy

Mount Holyoke College
Sohail Hashmi teaches in the International Relations Program. His teaching and research focus is religion and politics, particularly the role of Islam in domestic and international politics, and international ethics, especially ideas of just war in Western and Islamic civilizations.

Mohammed Jiyad has taught Arabic as a Senior Lecturer at Mount Holyoke College since 1990. In addition to teaching Arabic at various levels, he has also taught courses about Arabic women and women’s issues in the Arab world.

Amina Steinfels teaches in the Religion Department. Her courses deal with Islamic theology and history, women and gender in Islam, and her specialty, Sufism in South Asia.

Smith College
Ilona Ben–Moshe

Ibtissam Bouachrine

Abdelkader Berrahmoun

Justin Cammy is a specialist in Yiddish literature and Eastern European Jewish culture. His research interests lie in the literature, history, and culture of the modern Jewish experience, and he regularly teaches an interdisciplinary introduction to Jewish religion, history and culture that serves as the basis of the Jewish Studies minor.

Donna Robinson Divine

Suleiman Mourad teaches courses on Islamic history and religious tradition, and on methods and comparative themes in the study of religion. His publications focus on the ways Muslims in premodern times interacted with their history and religious tradition by shaping it and constantly adapting it to their own socio-political and religious expectations.

Karen Pfeifer

Nadya Sbaiti

Gregory White

University of Massachusetts

Anne Broadbridge

Walter Denny

Tayeb El-Hibri

Izza Hussin

David Mednicoff

Mary Wilson