Department of History

Nadia Oweidat

Nadia Oweidat

Assistant Professor
D.Phil. University of Oxford, Oriental Studies, 2014
Office: 204 Calvin Hall
Email: Oweidat@ksu.edu

My research focuses on the history, culture, and politics of the modern Middle East and North Africa region, as well as the intellectual history of Islamic thought.


My first book, Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam: The Case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (2024, Oxford University Press), concerns the efforts of Muslim intellectuals to reconcile their religious identities with liberal values in the contemporary world. Ever since the Islamic world first encountered Western liberalism, the intellectual field of Islamic thought has witnessed vibrant debates and a diversity of perspectives on the relationship between Islam and modernity. Many scholars of Islamic thought have attempted to integrate liberal values, such as equality, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience, with the Islamic tradition. Muslim modernists argue that these ideals represent the most accurate expression of Islam when it is properly understood, even if the sacred texts and historical realities of Muslim communities seem to contradict their claims. With Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010) as a case study, the book analyzes the intellectual trends that propose a reconciliation between liberal values and Islam. It examines in depth the roadblocks and challenges to liberalizing Islamic thought, both externally in the form of oppressive regimes and an intolerant religious arena, as well as internally at the level of intellectual arguments.


My current book project, A Million Clicks to Freedom: The Virtual Battlefield of Ideas in the Arab World, began with the support of a $150k Smith Richardson Foundation grant through a Fellowship at New America, then through a Wilson Center Fellowship. This book documents and analyzes the migration of reformist ideas among Arabic speakers to the digital sphere. While it is well known that authoritarian regimes, as well as extremist groups such as the Islamic State, have been successful in drawing tens of thousands of recruits from around the world to their ranks, much less is known about Arabic speakers who are using social media to accomplish the opposite end, namely, to challenge established norms and push the boundaries of debate on taboo issues, be they historical, political, religious or social. They, too, have drawn large followings among their peers and they, too, have the potential to cause radical and irreversible change in their communities, as data and events in the past two decades have shown.

 

Courses Taught

Graduate Courses:

  • HIST 852: A History and Security of the Modern Middle East: The Battlefield of Ideas, Politicians, and Holy Men

Undergraduate Courses:

  • HIST 301: History of the Modern Middle East
  • HIST 598: History of Islam
  • HIST 112: A World History from 1450
  • HIST 516: The Modern Middle East
  • HIST 598: Intellectual History of the Middle East & North Africa in 20th Century