Faculty by Undergraduate Concentration

All history majors select a geographic region of concentration as their primary area of study: Americas and Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe and the Mediterranean World. Majors are encouraged to get to know the faculty in their region of concentration as early as possible.

History majors are also encouraged to carve out their own unique thematic research pathway — religion, social movements, science and environment, and gender, to name a few — and to get to know the history faculty who specialize in those research areas.

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Muriam H Davis
  • Title
    • Associate Professor
  • Division Humanities Division
  • Department
    • History Department
  • Affiliations Center for the Middle East and North Africa (CMENA)
  • Phone
    831-459-4257
  • Email
  • Office Location
    • Stevenson College Academic Building, 212
  • Office Hours Spring 2024: Thurdays from 4-6pm and by appointment.
  • Mail Stop Stevenson Academic Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High Street
    • Santa Cruz CA 95064
  • Faculty Areas of Expertise North Africa, Middle East Studies, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Capitalism, European Studies
  • Courses HIS 154: Postcolonial North Africa, HIS 156B: Modern Arab Thought, HIS 194W: Social Movements in the Middle East, HIS 184B: Race and Anti-Racism in Europe, HIS 170C: From the Trenches to the Casbah: France and its Empire in the 20th Century, HIS 252: Republicanism and its Discontents, HIS 262: The Contours of the New Middle East History

Research Interests

My research interests focus on development, decolonization and race in North Africa. My first book, Markets of Civilization: Islam and Racial Capitalism in Algeria will be published with Duke University Press in 2022. I am currently working on the history of the social sciences and decolonization, with a particular focus on the discipline of sociology.

Biography, Education and Training

2004-2006: MA in Arab Studies, Georgetown University

2006-2008: MA in Culture and Theory, University of California, Irvine

2008-2015: PhD in History, NYU 

2015-2016: Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow, European University Institute 

Selected Publications

Books:

Markets of Civilization: Racial Capitalism and Islam in Algeria, Duke University Press.

Co-editor of North Africa and the Making of Europe: Governance, Institution and Culture. Bloomsbury Academic Publishing, 2018. 

Selected Recent Articles:

"Race and Decolonization in North Africa," Oxford Research Encylopedia of African History, Spring 2023.

“‘Algiers and the Algerian Desert: Decolonization and Territorial Planning in France, 1958-1962,” Journal of Modern History, Fall 2023.

"Incommensurate Ontologies? Anti-Black Racism and the Question of Islam in French Algeria." Lateral, Spring 2021.

"The Transformation of Man in French Algeria: Economic Planning and the Postwar Social Sciences." Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 52(1), 73-94, 2017.

 

Recent Media Appearances/Writings:

France24, “Algeria Marks 60 Years since the End of French Rule,” 5 July 2022.

 

 Al-Jazeera Plus, “What you Don’t Hear about France’s Muslims,” 22 April 2022.

 

Jadaliyya, “Macron’s Speech Purposefully Misdiagnosed the Real Issues Facing the Republic,” 20 March 2022.