Adam Mestyan, Associate Professor

Dr. Mestyan is on sabbatical leave in the academic year 2023-2024.

Adam Mestyan researches and teaches the history of empire and subordinated states in the Arabic-speaking world. He is most interested in devising new analytical categories to describe temporal change. His current research interest centers on the relationship between nature, Islamic law, taxation, and state formation in the twentieth century. He is now writing an environmental history of Cairo.

His previous works in cultural and political history include Modern Arab Kingship - Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2023), a work of new imperial history, in which he developed the argument that, instead of colonialism and nationalism, the operation of "recycling empire" was at the heart of new political orders in the Arab successor polities of the Ottoman Empire; Primordial History, Print Capitalism, and Egyptology in Nineteenth-Century Cairo (Ifao, 2021), a manuscript translation and edition with an essay about Muslim chronographical praise in the Egyptian age of steam; and Arab Patriotism - The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2017), an archive-based study of the Ottoman-local cultural origins of Egyptian nationalism through theaters and plays. He remains interested in the cultural history in the Eastern Mediterranean. His articles appeared in the Journal of Global History, Comparative Studies in Society and History, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Urban History, and many other academic journals.

He has also been creating digital tools and Arabic databases for scholars and the public. He supervises an online bibliography on Arabic periodicals: Jara'id: A Chronology of Arabic Periodicals, 1800-1929; co-directs a digital humanities project on the urban history of Cairo and another one on Islamic book history.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	318 Classroom Bldg, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone:	+1 919 684 3014
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.adammestyan.com/

Teaching (Fall 2024):

• HISTORY 402S.01, CAIRO Synopsis

  Class Bldg 106, W 08:30 AM-11:00 AM

  (also cross-listed as AMES 403S.01, CULANTH 403S.01)

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, Modern Arab Kingship Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (August, 2023), Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691190976  [abs]
2. Mestyan, A, Fu'ad I, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three (2023), pp. 22-24, Brill [doi]
3. Mestyan, A, “Land Privatization in Islamic Law? The Case of Irsad in Egypt, 1850-1950”, The Arabist, vol. 44 (November, 2022), pp. 87-104
4. Mestyan, A; Nori, R, The Probate Regime: Enchanted Bureaucracy, Islamic Law, and the Capital of Orphans in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Law and History Review, vol. 40 no. 4 (November, 2022), pp. 597-624, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [doi]  [abs]
5. Mestyan, A; Schwartz, KA, An Egyptian Shaykh's Literary World, 1870: Digitally Reconstructing Islamic Print Culture Through Mustafa Salama al-Najjari's Books, Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, vol. 9 no. 2 (September, 2022), pp. 85-90