Zachary Lockman

The main focus of my research and teaching has been the socioeconomic, political and cultural history of the modern Middle East, particularly the Mashriq. Under the influence of the “new social history” and “history from below” movements of the 1960s and 1970s, I did my doctoral dissertation on the emergence and evolution of a working class and labor movement in Egypt from the late nineteenth century until the Second World War; it was published in 1987 as Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954, co-authored with Joel Beinin. I later published other work on society, culture and politics in Egypt in the 1882-1919 period. I have also done a great deal of research and writing on Palestine, including a co-edited 1989 volume on the first Intifada and a 1996 book titled Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, along with various articles, book reviews and talks. My most recent books are Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism (2004, second edition 2010), and Field Notes: The Making of Middle East Studies in the United States (2016).

Along the way I have served as president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), as a member of the Joint Committee on the Near and Middle East of the Social Science Research Council/American Council of Learned Societies, and as a member of the board of directors of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC). I am currently chair of the wing of MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom that deals with North America, and a contributing editor of Middle East Report. Last but definitely not least, I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work closely with a great many wonderful undergraduate and graduate students, at Harvard and (since 1995) at NYU.