Our Faculty
The Middle East & Islamic Studies Program faculty members come from departments within the College of Arts and Sciences. Their course offerings provide a foundation for this interdisciplinary program.
Department of Classical and Modern Languages
Bingham Humanities Building Room 330B
smabde01@louisville.edu
Shereen Abdelhalim is a lecturer in Modern Standard Arabic and a member of the MEIS program. Ms. Abdelhalim received her Master’s degree from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. Ms. Abdelhalim was a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant in 2009-2010. She specializes in Arabic and English and foreign language acquisition.
Department of History
101A Gottschalk Hall
(502) 852-1392
brad.bowman@louisville.edu
Dr. Brad Bowman is an Assistant Professor of History and faculty member of the MEIS Program. Dr. Bowman teaches The Origins of Islam, The Islamic Middle East to 1500, and Byzantium and Islam. His research interests include Christian-Muslim cultural interaction in the early Islamic period, the history of the early caliphates, relations between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world, as well as medieval Christian monasticism and pilgrimage routes in the Levant. He is currently working on a translation of a 13th century Arabic manuscript as a Fellow in the Commonwealth Center for Humanities and Society.
Department of Modern Languages
Bingham Humanities Bldg, 323
502-852-1635
gshutch@louisville.edu
Dr. Gregory Hutcheson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages of Spanish. He received his Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from Harvard University. Dr. Hutcheson’s specializations and research interests include medieval Iberian cultures early Spanish literature, inter-cultural relations in the Western Mediterranean, and the history of sexuality.
Department of Sociology
Lutz Hall
502-852-8027
gul.marshall@louisville.edu
Dr. Marshall is an Associate Professor of Sociology. She teaches Sociology of Gender, Social Theory, Gender and Social Movements, Gender in the Middle East, and Women: International Perspective. Her research interests are in the areas of gender, politics, social movements, and social policy. Her articles on women’s movements and women’s rights in Turkey have been published in journals, such as Gender & Society and Social Politics, as well as in edited volumes. Dr. Marshall’s current line of research highlights the significance of transnational feminist activism in influencing gender policies both at national and supranational levels. She is the author of Shaping Gender Policy in Turkey: Grassroots Women Activists, the European Union, and the Turkish State (2013, SUNY Press).
Department of Modern Languages
Bingham Humanities Bldg, 329F
502-852-3926
khaldoun.almousily@louisville.edu
Mr. Almousily is the new instructor and program coordinator of Arabic language at UofL. He has been teaching Arabic to speakers of other languages since 2003. He taught Arabic at Western Kentucky University (October 2010 – June 2015). His efforts led to the building of the first major and minor in Arabic in the state of Kentucky. He is currently working on building the Arabic program at UofL on a larger scale.
Mr. Almousily has extensive knowledge and experience in translation and interpreting here and abroad. He has interpreted at a large number of local, regional and international conferences for both government and private sectors in the field of human rights and refugee protection programs. He also works as a judicial Arabic/English translator and interpreter for the Administrative office of the courts on state and federal levels.
Division of Humanities
Bingham Hall, 214B
502-852-3054
m.moazzen@louisville.edu
Following the completion of a doctorate in Persian Language and Literature at the University of Tehran, Maryam Moazzen received a second PhD in Islamic Studies in the department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations from the University of Toronto in 2011. Her forthcoming book entitled Shi‘ite Higher Learning and the Role of the Madrasa-yi Sultani in Late Safavid Iran is a systematic study of the Shi’ite higher learning in early modern times. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her area of specialization and research interests include Islamic intellectual and cultural history, classical through modern Middle Eastern literature, Shi‘ism and Sufism. She is currently researching problems and possibilities that modernity raised for Shi‘ite higher learning since 1800 to early twentieth century.
