Middle Eastern Studies (research) (MA)
Meet our staff
Dr. Jelle Bruning
Jelle Bruning is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. Jelle Bruning specialises in the social and intellectual history of early-Islamic Egypt (ca. 640-1000 CE). He works extensively with documentary sources in Arabic, Coptic, and Greek and contemporary literary texts. View his full profile here.
Dr. Sai Englert
Sai Englert is Assistant Professor in political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. His research interests include: political economy, settler colonialism, and labour movements. More specifically, he has researched Labour Zionism, Palestinian Labour, Israel's regional integration, and its natural gas extraction in the Mediterranean. He has also written on contemporary antisemitism and its political (mis)uses. View his full profile here.
Prof.dr. Petra Sijpesteijn
Petra Sijpesteijn is professor of Arabic. Her research concentrates on recovering the experiences of Muslims and non-Muslims living under Islamic rule, using the vast stores of radically under-used documents surviving from the early Islamic world. Starting in 2017, she manages an international research project entitled "Embedding Conquest: Naturalising Muslim Rule in the Early Islamic Empire (600-1000)", funded by the European Research Council. View her full profile here.
Dr. Alp Yenen
Alp Yenen is University Lecturer. He works primarily on the political history of modern Turkey and the Middle East. He is specialised on the turn of the 20th century, First World War, Interwar period, and the Cold War period. He also comments and consults on contemporary politics in Turkey. View his full profile here.
Dr. Marina Calculli
Marina Calculli is a university lecturer. Her research sits at the intersection of International Relations, History, Law and Political Theory. She concentrates on Middle East security, political violence, and the role of religious and secular ideas in world politics. View her full profile here.
Dr. Crystal Ennis
Crystal Ennis is a scholar of international relations, and comparative and global political economy, with a broad interest in development, labour, and migration regimes. Her recent work demonstrates how the present and future of work in local spaces are entangled within the trajectories of global capitalist development. She has conducted field work in the Arabian Peninsula, South and Southeast Asia, and East Africa. View her full profile here.