Dr. Lorenzo Kamel

Harvard University
History/Islamic Studies

Junior Fellow (Marie S. Curie FCFP)
September 2016 – August 2017

E-Mail: lorenzo.kamel@frias.uni-freiburg.de

Last Update: 31.08.2017

Curriculum Vitae

Lorenzo Kamel is a Marie Curie historian at the University of Freiburg’s Institute for Advanced Studies. He is also Senior Fellow at IAI and Associate at Harvard University’s CMES, where he served as a Postdoc Fellow for two years. He received a two-year’s M.A. in Israeli Society and Politics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in History at Bologna University. He obtained the habilitation, by the Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR), as Associate Professor in Contemporary History; Cultures of the Ancient Near East, of the Middle East and Africa; History of International Relations: in all three cases with the unanimous approval of the board of examiners.

He held lessons, seminars and courses in several Italian and international universities and spent extensive periods as a visiting fellow in Egypt (‘Ain Shams University), the Palestinian Territories (Birzeit University), Israel (Hebrew University), Turkey (Bilkent University). He published 7 books – including Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times (I.B. Tauris 2015) and Arab Spring and Peripheries (Routledge 2016). Other publications include about 35 articles on academic journals – such as the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Peace and Change, Eurasian Studies, New Middle Eastern Studies, Passato e Presente, Oriente Moderno, Mediterranean Politics, The International Spectator – and over 150 articles on, among others, Al-Jazeera, Ha’aretz, Al-Monitor, The National Interest, Project Syndicate. He received the 2016 “Palestine Book Award” and the 2010 International “Giuseppe Sciacca” Award. Lorenzo is 36 years old and a proud father of Niccolò and Valerie.

Selected Publications

Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times, 1854-1923, I.B. Tauris, London and New York 2015, 336 pp.
Arab Spring and Peripheries: A Decentring Research Agenda, Routledge, London 2016, 170 pp.
Changing Migration Patterns in the Mediterranean, EDC, Rome 2015, 214 pp.
Dalle Profezie all’Impero: L’espansione dell’Occidente nel Mediterraneo orientale, 1798-1878 [From Prophecies to Empire: The Western penetration in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1798-1878], Carocci, Rome 2015, 170 pp.
Whose land? Land tenure in late 19^th and early 20^th century Palestine, «British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies», 41(2), 2014, pp. 230-242.

FRIAS Project

The transformation of political Islam in a fragmented region: a Middle Eastern perspective

Governance failures combined with 21st century social, economic, environmental and demographic conditions paved the way for the rise of a number of new non-State and quasi-State actors in the Middle East. Are States irremediably undermined or will the current transition lead to the emergence of new State entities? How to reconcile the crumbling of States and the redrawing of borders with the exacerbation of traditional inter-state competition, including through proxy wars? My research project at FRIAS aims to provide academic answers to these and a number of related questions. I will analyse developments in the region focusing on the interplay between disintegration and polarization, paying a particular attention to new Islamic and Islamist movements that are flourishing in the Palestinian context and the broader region. Taking advantage of the years that I spent in the Middle East and the primary sources collected in various countries of the MENA, I will provide an historical context for understanding and evaluating the ongoing process of radicalization in the Eastern Mediterranean.