Faculty and Staff
Kenneth M. Cuno
Associate Professor of History
I teach the early modern and modern history of the entire Middle East, though my research has been mainly in the social history of Egypt, 18th-20th centuries. My first book The Pasha's Peasants: Land, Society and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858 (Cambridge, 1992) received “honorable mention” in the Albert Hourani book prize competition of the Middle East Studies Association, and was published in Arabic translation by the Supreme Council for Culture, Cairo, in 2000.
From political economy and agrarian history in the 18th and 19th centuries I have moved, in my current book project, to the history of the family in Egypt during the “long” nineteenth century. I am particularly interested in changing patterns of family formation and changing attitudes toward marriage, divorce, and other aspects of family during the past 200 years. A continuing interest of mine that connects the first book with the second is legal history – the history of Islamic law as it was applied in and affected society, the use of legal records (court registers and fatwas) as sources for social history, and the evolution of applied Islamic law during the era of codification and secularization. Another interest I am pursuing is the shaping of identity through historical writing in Egypt and the Middle East generally. Last but not least, teaching and public speaking responsibilities have necessitated I address U.S. policy in the Middle East.
These eclectic interests are reflected in my publications, all of which are in my vita below. The most recent are: “Household: Comparative Practices” in the Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Ed. Bonnie G. Smith (4 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 2:486-491; “United States Policy towards the Middle East” in the Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450 (Detroit, 2007), 3:1101-1108; “Contrat salam et transformations agricoles en basse Égypte à l’époque ottomane,” Annales, Histoire, Sciences Socials, 61, 4 (July-Aug. 2006), 925-940; “Demography, Household Formation, and Marriage in Three Egyptian Villages during the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in Sociétés rurales ottomanes / Ottoman Rural Societies, ed. Mohammad Afifi, et al. (Cairo, 2005), 105-117; “Constructing Muhammad Ali.” Ahram Weekly, No. 768., 10-15 Nov. 2005; “The U.S. in the Middle East: Oil as a Factor,” Bridges: an Interdisciplinary Journal of Theology, Philosophy, History and Science, 1, 1/2 (Spring/Summer 2004), 69-86; and “Ambiguous Modernization: The Transition to Monogamy in the Khedival House of Egypt,” in Beshara Doumani, ed., Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender (Albany, 2003), 247-270.
Undergraduate courses
Lecture & lecture/discussion courses
SAMES/HIST 133 Introduction to the World of Islam
HIST 135: History and Civilization of the Islamic Middle East, 7th-20th Centuries C.E.
HIST 438: Egypt since the First World War
HIST 435: The Emergence of the Modern Middle East in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
HIST 437: The Middle East in the Twentieth Century.
Undergraduate research and writing seminars (Hist. 298)
Landlords, peasants, and the state
Nationalism and religion in the Middle East
Graduate courses
Problems/readings courses in Middle East history: social history; core readings; women; family, gender and law; peasants; nationalism.
Seminars in 19th & 20th century Middle East history.