As we begin the semester, we're highlighting Bryn Mawr's newest faculty members. The College supports faculty excellence in both research and teaching.
Rubina K. Salikuddin, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and North African Studies
"I am a historian of late medieval and early modern Iran and Central Asia, and my work centers on figuring out what life looked like for people living in this period, how they saw their place in both their communities and in a the larger world, and how they constructed an ideal of a life properly lived. To this end, I have focused on religious and cultural production in Iran and Central Asia in the 14th to 16th centuries. My research is fundamentally motivated by core questions of relevance across the breadth and depth of human experience with a particular focus on recuperating the historicity of the subaltern and those on the margins of history.
"My current book project focuses on medieval notions of what is sacred. It argues that communities in 15th- and 16th-century Iran and Central Asia constructed the sacred around their own local and regional contexts, particularly through pilgrimage to local shrines of the holy dead.
"I will be teaching courses on the medieval, early modern, and modern history of the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as more interdisciplinary courses on the Middle East generally. I have been at Bryn Mawr for the past few years as a postdoctoral researcher and look forward to continuing to work with students as an assistant professor."