SOAS University of London

Graduate Student, History

PhD Candidate

Thesis Title: Globalization, the State, and Narrative Plurality: Historiography in Saudi Arabia

About

My research interests lie in the global history, the history of the Middle East (especially Saudi Arabia and the Gulf), and the history of scholarship (especially historiography and the history of science). Before coming to SOAS, I studied History and Arabic Studies at the University of Vienna and subsequently taught German at King Saud University in Riyadh.

My doctoral research project, supervised by Konrad Hirschler, has the title 'Globalization, the State, and Narrative Plurality: Historiography in Saudi Arabia'. I investigate the development of approaches to, and narratives in, historical writing in the kingdom within its social, intellectual, and political circumstances. I am especially interested in the emergence of a diversity of approaches, including dynastic, local, tribal, and social historiographies, and their different interpretations of the past. I argue that this plurality of voices is the result of a combination of factors inherent in Saudi state formation and the increasing integration of the state in global economies. I explore these connections through a wide reading of Saudi historical texts and numerous interviews with Saudi historians.

I am very grateful to Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah Foundation, the British Society for Middle Eastern Studiesas, the Society for Arabian Studies and SOAS for supporting my research.

While completing my PhD, I am also preparing a new research project on 'Networks in the History of Biology in the Arab Gulf States'.

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