Staff

Professors

Islam Dayeh

Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies

Interests: Islamic intellectual history, history of knowledge, modern Arabic and Islamic thought, critical philology.

Liza Franke

Professor of Islamic Studies

Interests: Cultures and societies of the modern and contemporary Middle East, social and intellectual history of Islam, socio-religious dynamics, history of Palestine, martyrdom and eschatology, Arabic literature, gender and identity.

Fokelien Kootstra

Visiting professor in Arabic epigraphy and Arabic historical linguistics

Interests: Pre-Islamic Arabia, Early Arabic, Arabic papyri, development of writing traditions, historical sociolinguistics

Aymon Kreil

Professor of Middle Eastern Anthropology

Interests: Cultures and societies of the contemporary Middle East, gender, love and sexuality, art and calligraphy

Christopher Markiewicz

Professor of Ottoman and Islamic Studies

Interests: Islamic history (13th-17th century), Ottoman Empire, Islamic political culture, comparative empires, new diplomatic history

Sara Mondini

Professor of Art and Architecture of West and South Asia

Interests: Islamic, Indo-Islamic and South Asian art and architecture (12th-19th century), modern and contemporary art from the MENASA region, the Indian Ocean network, the dynamics of patronage, exchanges and identity-building processes.

Jo Van Steenbergen

Professor of Islamic History

Interests: Islamic history, Islamic political culture, comparative empire, state formation, Arabic historiography

Researchers

Kotoz Ahmed

Postdoctoral researcher in the ERC Project KNOW: Polymathy and Interdisciplinarity in Premodern Islamic Epistemic Cultures

Interests: Social and intellectual history, Arabic (Pre)Modernity with a focus on Egypt, Arab-European transculturality, digital humanities

Colinda Lindermann

Postdoctoral researcher in the ERC Project KNOW: Polymathy and Interdisciplinarity in Premodern Islamic Epistemic Cultures

Interests: Arabic philology in the post-formative period, history of knowledge, adab , pre-Islamic poetry

Mohamed Maslouh

PhD-researcher

Interests: Mamluk history, sufism, Cairo Sultanate

Muhammed Niyas Ashraf

Postdoctoral Researcher in FWO Project: The mosques of Kerala. Artistic vocabularies in the identity-building of Muslim communities
Interests: Modern Muslim South Asia, Islamic intellectual History (19th & 20th Century), Print and Book History, Indian Ocean Literature, Mappilas of Malabar

Muhamed Riyaz Chenganakkattil

Postdoctoral Researcher in FWO Project: The mosques of Kerala. Artistic vocabularies in the identity-building of Muslim communities

Interests: Islam in South Asia and the Middle East, history of Muslim mobilities, migration and transnational networks, Indian Ocean networks, Islamic material culture, Islamic Intellectual history, pilgrimage to Mecca, Hajj literature, South Indian Muslim textual tradition.

muhamedriyaz.chenganakkattil@ugent.be

Ophelie Mercier

PhD-researcher

Interests: Anthropology of art, migration, intersectionality, Egypt, Palestine

Semih Özmeriç

PhD-researcher

Interests: The comparative history of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the intellectual history of the early modern world, the history of emotions and mentalities.

Roman Schärer

PhD-researcher

Interests: Islamic philanthropy, Islamic history, historiography, theology

Maya Termonia

Research Associate

Interests: Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL), decolonization of Arabic language teaching, Arabic grammar, Egyptian Arabic, Egypt, Sultanate of Cairo, Arabic literature

Language lecturers

George Khouri

Language lecturer

Interests: Language acquisition, Media Arabic

Maya Termonia

OB, Language Lecturer

Interests: Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL), decolonization of Arabic language teaching, Arabic grammar, Egyptian Arabic, Egypt, Sultanate of Cairo, Arabic literature

Stijn Van Nieuwenhuyse

Language lecturer

Interests: Language acquisition, Media Arabic, Arabian Nights, Kalila wa Dimna

Affiliated and Former Researchers

Administration