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Faculty Directory

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 2025 - Wed 3-5pm, sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FRjYLCDXT2ozavI4bGt-bZNDnLAqky8vI24pMMCzYpg/edit?gid=0#gid=0
  • 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:

 

“Histoire et capitalisme racial :un entretien," Marronnages, Vol. 3, No. 1, Winter 2024.

 

“Frantz Fanon the Sociologist? Algeria, Tunisia and the Making of a Discipline," POMEPS Studies 53, Fall 2024.

 

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

 

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

 

Recent Media Appearances/Writings:

 

LARB, “The US Academy and the Provincialization of Frantz Fanon,” 2023.

 

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