Sherene Seikaly

Sherene Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her book Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (2016) explores economy, territory, the home, and the body. Her forthcoming book, From Baltimore to Beirut: On the Question of Palestine tells a global history of capital, slavery, and dispossession. She is co-editor of Journal of Palestine Studies and Jadaliyya. 

Seikaly notes, “I was lucky enough to have Michael Gilsenan as a mentor at New York University. Throughout my graduate training, his home was a space of gathering, support, and intellectual nourishing for legions of us. He trained me to think ethnographically. He taught me to approach each question with curiosity and humility. He taught me how to remain principled. He taught me how to be brave. More than anything else, he taught me to value and nourish friendship and joy.” 

Festpod conversation was about Lebanon, ethnography, the politics of Middle East Studies, and how to build and survive academic institutions.