Ussama Makdisi

Ussama Makdisi
Makdisi in 2025
Born1968 (age 57–58)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
EducationWesleyan University (BA)
Princeton University (PhD)
Occupations
  • Professor
  • author
SpouseElora Shehabuddin
Parent(s)Jean Said Makdisi (mother), Samir Makdisi (father)
RelativesSaree Makdisi (brother), Karim Makdisi (brother)
AwardsBerlin Prize (2018)

Ussama Makdisi (born 1968)[1] is a Palestinian American historian specializing in the history of the modern Middle East.[2] He is a professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley,[3] where he is also the Chancellor's Chair and was the May Ziadeh Chair in Palestinian and Arab Studies.[4]

Early life

Ussama Makdisi was born in 1968 in Washington, D.C.,[5] to professors Jean Said Makdisi and Samir Makdisi, in a family of academics.[6] He is of Palestinian Christian and Lebanese Christian descent. He received a B.A. degree from Wesleyan University in 1990 and a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 1997.[7]

Academic career

Makdisi's research focuses on Ottoman and Arab history, Arab–American relations, and US missionary work in the Middle East.[5][8]

In 1997, he became the inaugural Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas.[3][9] He has also served as a visiting professor at the American University of Beirut and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

From 2012 to 2013, he was a resident fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study.[8] In 2018, he was awarded the Berlin Prize.[10]

He started a podcast, Makdisi Street, with his brothers in November 2023 to "discuss the coverage and framing of the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza."[11]

His name, among 160 students and other faculty, was shared by UC Berkeley with the Trump administration as part of an investigation into alleged antisemitic incidents.[12] He responded in an interview on NPR and another on Occupied Thoughts by Foundation for Middle East Peace, calling the investigation a crackdown on academic freedom reminiscent of McCarthyism.[13][14]

Books

As author

  • Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World (University of California Press, 2019)
  • Faith Misplaced: the Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations, 1820-2001 (PublicAffairs, 2010)
  • Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East (Cornell University Press, 2008)
  • The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (University of California Press, 2000)

As co-editor

References

  1. ↑ "Die zersplitterte Ökumene". nd.Aktuell (in German). 2025-06-05. Retrieved 2026-05-18.
  2. ↑ Mehta, Tarini (2025-04-11). "Despite backlash, SSU lecture on Palestine draws crowd, standing ovation". The Press Democrat. Retrieved 2026-05-14.
  3. 1 2 "Ussama Makdisi". UC Berkeley Department of History. Retrieved 2026-05-18.
  4. ↑ Watanabe, Teresa (2024-09-10). "UC Berkeley launches one of the nation's few Palestinian-Arab studies programs amid demand". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2025-11-11.
  5. 1 2 "Wiko Recollections: Ussama Makdisi" (PDF). Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. 2012. Retrieved 2024-06-14.
  6. ↑ Makdisi, Ussama Samir (2000). The culture of sectarianism: community, history, and violence in nineteenth-century Ottoman Lebanon. University of California Press. p. xiii. ISBN 978-0-520-92279-2.
  7. ↑ Reinkowski, Maurus (2001). "Review of The Culture of Sectarianism. Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon". Die Welt des Islams. 41 (2): 261–263. ISSN 0043-2539.
  8. 1 2 "Ussama Makdisi". American Academy in Berlin. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  9. ↑ Saad, Najra Margared (June 12, 2015). "Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies". The Arab Weekly. p. 16.
  10. ↑ "American Academy in Berlin Announces 2017–18 Berlin Prize Recipients" (PDF) (Press release). The American Academy in Berlin. May 10, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Makdisi Street: 'An unmitigated human catastrophe'". Libsyn. November 25, 2023. Retrieved 2026-05-18.
  12. ↑ Levin, Sam (2025-09-12). "UC Berkeley shares 160 names with Trump administration in 'McCarthy era' move". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  13. ↑ Fadel, Leila (2025-09-18). "UC Berkeley professor warns of 'unprecedented crackdown' on academic freedom". NPR. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
  14. ↑ "UC Berkeley's Betrayal of Academic Freedom in this Time of Genocide". Foundation for Middle East Peace. 2025-09-23. Retrieved 2026-04-30.
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