Mark Levine

Mark is Professor of History at at the University of California, Irvine. Prior to this, he was a fellow at numerous research institutions, including the International Center for Advanced Studies at NYU, the Stuttgart Seminar in Cultural Studies, in Stuttgart Germany, the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He is also currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden

Mark has spent the last fifteen years living, researching, reporting from and performing in the Middle East, including Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and the Persian Gulf. His research uses sources in Arabic and Hebrew, as well as Turkish and Persian, Italian, French and German. His approach is inter-disciplinary, and combines the latest theoretical and methodological advances in fields such as history, anthropology, sociology, political science, comparative literature and cultural studies with a strong grounding in classical texts and the European intellectual history.

His work focuses on the deep histories of present day problems and conflicts from a global perspective; one that places the Muslim world firmly within the larger interactions between Europe, Africa and Asia during the last half millennium while offering a unique perspective on issues of public concern, from the war on terror and supposed “clash of civilizations” to the explosion of youth-led uprisings and the role of popular culture in the wrenching changes that are occurring across the region today. He combines his work as a scholar with journalism, transcultural artistic production as a musician, film maker and creative writer, and activism for human rights across the region.

Major publications include: An Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989, Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, and Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation.