Adam Mestyan, Associate Professor and Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center and Director of the Duke University Middle East Studies Center

Adam Mestyan is a historian of the modern Arab world. He is Associate Professor of History and the Director of both the Middle East Studies Center and the Islamic Studies Center at Duke University. He is also the Director of Graduate Studies for the Graduate Certificate in Middle East Studies.

In matters of DUMESC/DISC and the Graduate Certificate in MES please contact Prof. Mestyan at: dumesc-director@duke.edu.

Prof. Mestyan has also been the recipient of many fellowships and awards including a junior fellowship in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and a membership in the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton). 

His research focuses on modern Syria and Egypt. His monographs include Modern Arab Kingship – Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2023), Primordial History, Print Capitalism, and Egyptology in Nineteenth-Century Cairo (Ifao, 2021); and Arab Patriotism: The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2017). He is currently the PI of the collaborative Arabic digital humanities project, Digital Cairo – Studying Urban Transformation through a TEI XML Database, 1828-1914, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and L’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire (Ifao).

Contact Info:

Office Location:	318 Classroom Bldg, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.adammestyan.com/

Teaching (Spring 2025):

• HISTORY 449S.01, SYRIA, 1921-2021 Synopsis

  Class Bldg 114, Tu 03:20 PM-05:50 PM

  (also cross-listed as AMES 449S.01)

• HISTORY 790S-03.01, AFRICAN/ASIAN HISTORY (TOP) Synopsis

  SEE INSTRU , M 10:20 AM-12:50 PM

Office Hours:

By appointment.

Education:

Ph.D.	Eotvos Lorand University (Hungary)	2011
Ph.D.	Central European University (Hungary)	2011
M.A.	Central European University (Hungary)	2007
M.A.	Eotvos Lorand University (Hungary)	2005
M.A.	Eotvos Lorand University (Hungary)	2004

Keywords:

Arab World • Bureaucracy • Constitutional law--Religious aspects--Islam • International law (Islamic law) • International law--Religious aspects--Islam • Islam • Islamic law • Islamic press • Land titles • Land trusts • Land trusts (Islamic law) • Land value taxation (Islamic law) • Middle East • Middle East--Languages • Nationalism • Nationalism and literature • Nationalism and the arts • Press • Press and politics • Social history • Theater and nationalism

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Mestyan, A, Microhistory as Industrial History: Environment, Sugar Capitalism and Labour in Egypt, 1863–1879, Past & Present (August, 2024), Oxford University Press (OUP) [doi]  [abs]
2. Mestyan, A, The classical discovery of modern (book) history, Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 26 no. 3 (September, 2023), pp. 378-381, Informa UK Limited [doi]
3. Mestyan, A, Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking The Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (January, 2023), pp. 1-328, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691190976  [abs]
4. Mestyan, A, Fu'ad I, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three (2023), pp. 22-24, Brill [doi]
5. Mestyan, A, “Land Privatization in Islamic Law? The Case of Irsad in Egypt, 1850-1950”, The Arabist, vol. 44 (November, 2022), pp. 87-104