Curriculum Vitae

Employment

1. 2021–2027

   Emmy Noether Junior Research Group Leader, DFG project “The Evolution of Islamic Societies (c. 600–1600 CE): Algorithmic Analysis into Social History” (EIS1600), Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut

2. 2018–2021

   Senior Research Fellow, ERC project “Knowledge, Information Technology, & the Arabic Book” (KITAB), PI Prof. Dr. Sarah Bowen Savant, Aga Khan University–London, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations

3. 2017–2021

   Universitätsassistent für Digital Humanities, Universität Wien, Institut für Geschichte

4. 2015–2017

   Research Fellow, Universität Leipzig, Institut für Informatik, Lehrstuhl für Digital Humanities

5. 2013–2015

   Postdoctoral Associate, Tufts University, Department of Classics & Perseus Project

6. 2006–2012

   Graduate Student Instructor, University of Michigan, Department of Near Eastern Studies

7. 2004–2006

   Junior Researcher, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (formerly St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies), St. Petersburg (IOM RAS)

Education

1. 2006–2013

   Ph.D. (December 2013) and M.A. (April 2010) in Near Eastern Studies (Arabic & Islamic Studies), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (official record)

2. 2001–2004

   Post-graduate program in Islamic Studies, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg

3. 1999–2001

   St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Oriental Studies (History of the Arab Countries)

4. 1998–2001

   Specialist in Sociology (B.A. & M.A. equivalent), St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Sociology

5. 1999–2001

   Baltic State Technical University, Faculty of Humanities (Political Science), St. Petersburg

Digital Humanities Projects

1. 2021–2027

   EIS1600: The Evolution of Islamic Societies (c. 600–1600 CE): Algorithmic Analysis into Social History. Emmy Noether Junior Research Group, DFG (#445975300), Universität Hamburg. Principal investigator. Project page · eis1600.aai.uni-hamburg.de

2. 2014–

   OpenITI: Open Islamicate Texts Initiative (2014–2016: OpenArabic). Co-PI with Matthew T. Miller (University of Maryland) and Sarah Bowen Savant (Aga Khan University–London). About 8,700 titles by over 3,300 authors, some 861 million words. Project page · github.com/OpenITI

3. 2014–

   OpenITI mARkdown. A light-weight annotation scheme for Arabic-script texts: structural, morphological, and semantic tagging designed as a research method rather than an exchange format. Description

4. 2014–

   al-Ṯurayyā Project. A gazetteer (over 2,000 toponyms) and a geospatial model of the early Islamic world, with Masoumeh Seydi. Project page · althurayya.github.io

5. 2025

   OpenITI NgramReader and M10 Book Classification. Two online applications published as appendices to Digital Humanities for Arabic and Islamic Studies (Brill, 2026). Project page

6. 2019–

   OpenITI AOCP: Arabic-script OCR Catalyst Project. Co-led with Matthew T. Miller, Sarah Bowen Savant, David Smith, and Raffaele Viglianti; funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. openiti.org

7. 2018–2021

   KITAB: Knowledge, Information Technology, and the Arabic Book. ERC project (PI Sarah Bowen Savant); senior research fellow responsible for corpus development and text-reuse analysis. kitab-project.org

8. 2015

   Classical Arabic Through the Words of the Prophet: A Frequency-Based Ḥadīṯ Reader. Computationally generated teaching materials (Perseus Project & Department of Classics, Tufts University). PDF

Publications

Books

1. 2026new
   

   Digital Humanities for Arabic and Islamic Studies: A Proposition for the Field

   Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 1: The Near and Middle East, vol. 199. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2026. E-book (PDF) published 1 September 2026, ISBN 978-90-04-76053-0; hardback 1 October 2026, ISBN 978-90-04-76052-3

   An open online supplement with all figures from the book, enlargeable for closer examination, is published by Brill on figshare under a CC BY 4.0 licence (DOI 10.6084/m9.figshare.32324454). Two interactive applications accompany the case studies: the OpenITI NgramReader and the M10 Book Classification.

   Abstract

   In Digital Humanities for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Maxim Romanov proposes a bold vision for bringing Arabic and Islamic Studies fully into the digital age. Building on the vast OpenITI corpus—over a billion words spanning 1,400 years—Romanov demonstrates how computational tools can illuminate long-term cultural and linguistic developments across the Islamic world. Through accessible case studies on terminology tracing, genre modeling, and linguistic change, the book shows how digital methods expand rather than replace traditional scholarship. Romanov argues that the field’s digital transformation must be led from within—by scholars who understand its texts, traditions, and questions. This book provides both a roadmap and an invitation to rethink how the Arabic and Islamic heritage can be studied in the twenty-first century.

   Contents

   • Introduction
   • 1. A Pitch for Digital Humanities: The Premise · The Inescapable Digital Turn · The Ailment · The Remedy · The Ghost of the Network · The Pitch · The Proposition
   • 1. Digital Avatars and Metaobjects: Issues of the Text · Issues of the Corpus · Toward an Engineering Solution · Digital Pragmatism · Approaching Corpus Design · Linked Local Data · Uniform Resource Identifiers · URI-Based Local Structure · Encoding Conventions · Handling Metadata · The Hub That Makes It All Work · Corpus Releases · mARkdown as a Text Annotation Scheme · A Working Subcorpus
   • 1. Computational Inquiries: Outlining Practical Premises · Case Study 1, Tracing Term Usage · Case Study 2, Modeling Textual Typology · Case Study 3, Charting Linguistic Evolution
   • Afterword · Glossary of Common DH Terms · Bibliography · Index

   Brill (order or read online) Online supplement: figures (figshare, open) Appendix 1: NgramReader Appendix 2: Book Classification

   keypeer-reviewed

Articles and Book Chapters

1. 2019

   1001 Morphological Patterns: Algorithmically Generated Materials for Teaching Classical Arabic

   In Innovations and Traditions in Arabic and Islamic Studies: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Oleg I. Red’kin, 262–274. St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Press, 2019

   PDF Publisher

   peer-reviewed
2. 2019

   Studying the History of the Arabic Language: Language Technology and a Large-Scale Historical Corpus

   Yonatan Belinkov*, Alexander Magidow*, Alberto Barrón-Cedeño, Avi Shmidman, and Maxim Romanov (* equal contribution) · Language Resources and Evaluation 53 (2019): 771–805. Springer

   DOI PDF (author version)

   peer-reviewed
3. 2018

   A Digital Humanities for Premodern Islamic History

   Roundtable on Digital Humanities, International Journal of Middle East Studies 50, no. 1 (2018): 129–134. Cambridge University Press

   DOI PDF Read as a note

   keypeer-reviewed
4. 2018

   Digitizing the Textual Heritage of the Premodern Islamicate World: Principles and Plans

   Matthew Thomas Miller, Maxim G. Romanov, and Sarah Bowen Savant (alphabetically) · Roundtable on Digital Humanities, International Journal of Middle East Studies 50, no. 1 (2018): 103–109. Cambridge University Press

   DOI PDF

   keypeer-reviewed
5. 2017

   Algorithmic Analysis of Medieval Arabic Biographical Collections

   Speculum 92, no. S1 (2017): S226–S246

   DOI PDF

   keypeer-reviewedopen access
6. 2017

   Observations of a Medieval Quantitative Historian?

   Der Islam 94, no. 2 (2017): 462–495

   DOI PDF

   keypeer-reviewed
7. 2017

   Important New Developments in Arabographic Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

   Benjamin Kiessling, Matthew Thomas Miller, Maxim Romanov, and Sarah Bowen Savant (alphabetically) · al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭá: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists 25 (2017): 1–13

   PDF Read as a note

   keypeer-reviewedopen access
8. 2016

   After the Classical World: The Social Geography of Islam (c. 600–1300 CE)

   In Ars Islamica: Festschrift in Honor of Stanislav Mikhailovich Prozorov, edited by Mikhail Piotrovsky and Alikber Alikberov, 247–277. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura (Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Studies), 2016

   PDF

   keypeer-reviewed
9. 2016

   Digital Age, Digital Methods

   In Ars Islamica: Festschrift in Honor of Stanislav Mikhailovich Prozorov, edited by Mikhail Piotrovsky and Alikber Alikberov, 129–156. Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura (Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Studies), 2016

   PDF

   peer-reviewed
10. 2016

    Toward Abstract Models for Islamic History

    In The Digital Humanities and Islamic & Middle East Studies, edited by Elias Muhanna, 117–149. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. ISBN 978-3-11-037454-4

    PDF DOI

    keypeer-reviewed
11. 2014

    Toward the Digital History of the Pre-Modern Muslim World: Developing Text-Mining Techniques for the Study of Arabic Biographical Collections

    In Analysis of Ancient and Medieval Texts and Manuscripts: Digital Approaches, edited by Tara L. Andrews and Caroline Macé, 229–244. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014

    DOI PDF

    peer-reviewed
12. 2012

    Dreaming Ḥanbalites: Dream-Tales in Prosopographical Dictionaries

    In Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies, edited by Özgen Felek and Alexander Knysh, 31–50. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4384-3993-8

    PDF

    peer-reviewed
13. 2007

    The Term Ṣūfī: Spiritualizing Simple Words

    Pismennyie Pamyatniki Vostoka / Written Monuments of the Orient 5 (2007): 149–159

    PDF

    peer-reviewed
14. 2005

    Electronic Databases on Islam in Arabic, Persian, and English: A Review

    Stanislav M. Prozorov and Maxim Romanov · Pismennyie Pamyatniki Vostoka / Written Monuments of the Orient 2, no. 3 (2005): 240–257. With a summary in English · in Russian

    PDF PDF (IOM RAS)

    peer-reviewed
15. 2004

    The Paradigm of the Science of Ḥadīṯ (ʿilm al-ḥadīṯ)

    Vostok / Oriens 5 (2004): 5–11. With a summary in English · in Russian

    PDF (IOM RAS)

    peer-reviewed
16. 2009

    Ḥadīṯ Reports in Ibn al-Jawzī’s (d. 597/1201) System of Argumentation, Based on His Talbīs Iblīs (“Devil’s Delusions”)

    Khristianskii Vostok / Christian Orient, n.s. 5 (XI) (2009): 310–316. Moscow: Indrik (Russian Academy of Sciences and the State Hermitage). Accepted for publication in 2003 · in Russian

    PDF PDF (IOM RAS)

    peer-reviewed
17. 2003

    Principles and Procedures of Extracting and Processing Data from Arabic Sources: Historical and Biographical Sources

    Stanislav M. Prozorov and Maxim Romanov · Vostok / Oriens 4 (2003): 117–127. With a summary in English · in Russian

    PDF PDF (IOM RAS)

    peer-reviewed

Conference Papers, Proceedings, and Posters

1. 2023

   Enhancing State-of-the-Art NLP Models for Classical Arabic

   Tariq Yousef, Lisa Mischer, Hamid Reza Hakimi, and Maxim Romanov · In Proceedings of the Ancient Language Processing Workshop (RANLP 2023, Varna, 8 September 2023), 160–169

   PDF (proceedings) ACL Anthology

   peer-reviewedopen accessEIS1600
2. 2022

   Establishing Parameters for Stylometric Authorship Attribution of 19th-Century Arabic Books and Periodicals

   Till Grallert and Maxim Romanov · In Digital Humanities 2022: Book of Abstracts (University of Tokyo), 346–348

   peer-reviewed
3. 2019

   Open Islamicate Texts Initiative: A Machine-Readable Corpus of Texts Produced in the Premodern Islamicate World (poster)

   Maxim Romanov, Matthew Thomas Miller, Sarah Bowen Savant, and Masoumeh Seydi · In Digital Humanities 2019 Conference Papers (Utrecht University, 9–12 July 2019)

   The poster won the Utrecht Centre for Digital Humanities award for innovative and interdisciplinary research.

   Abstract Poster

   keypeer-reviewedopen access
4. 2019

   al-Ṯurayyā, the Gazetteer and the Geospatial Model of the Early Islamic World

   Maxim Romanov and Masoumeh Seydi · In Digital Humanities 2019 Conference Papers (Utrecht University, 9–12 July 2019)

   Abstract

   keypeer-reviewedopen access
5. 2019

   Orbis-in-a-Box (OIB): Modeling Historical Geographical Networks (poster)

   Maxim Romanov, Masoumeh Seydi, James Baillie, Karl Grossner, and Rainer Simon · In Digital Humanities 2019 Conference Papers (Utrecht University, 9–12 July 2019)

   Abstract Poster

   keypeer-reviewedopen access
6. 2017

   Premodern Geographical Description: Data Retrieval and Identification

   Masoumeh Seydi, Maxim Romanov, and Chiara Palladino (alphabetically) · In Proceedings of the 11th Workshop on Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR’17), 4:1–4:10. New York: ACM Press, 2017

   DOI PDF

   peer-reviewed
7. 2016

   Shamela: A Large-Scale Historical Arabic Corpus

   Yonatan Belinkov, Alexander Magidow, Maxim Romanov, Avi Shmidman, and Moshe Koppel (alphabetically) · In Proceedings of the Workshop on Language Technology Resources and Tools for Digital Humanities (LT4DH), 45–53. Osaka, 11–17 December 2016

   PDF ACL Anthology

   peer-reviewedopen access

Dissertation

1. 2013

   Computational Reading of Arabic Biographical Collections with Special Reference to Preaching in the Sunnī World (661–1300 CE)

   Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2013

   Deep Blue (U of Michigan) PDF (46 MB) Read as a note

   key

Working Papers, Preprints, and Teaching Materials

1. 2017

   Algorithmic Analysis of Medieval Arabic Biographical Collections (preprint)

   Leipzig University, May 2017. Published in Speculum 92 (2017)

   PDF Published version

2. 2016

   Observations of a Medieval Quantitative Historian? (preprint)

   Leipzig University, September 2016. Published in Der Islam 94 (2017)

   PDF Published version

3. 2015

   Classical Arabic Through the Words of the Prophet: A Frequency-Based Ḥadīṯ Reader

   Perseus Project & Department of Classics, Tufts University, 2015. A computationally generated introduction to the language of Ḥadīṯ (205 pages)

   PDF How it was made

   key
4. 2014

   After the Classical World: The Social Geography of Islam (661–1300 CE) (working paper)

   Tufts University, April 2014. Published in Ars Islamica (2016)

   PDF Published version

Data, Software, and Digital Publications

1. 2023

   OpenITI: A Machine-Readable Corpus of Islamicate Texts, Primary Version 2023.1.8

   Lorenz Nigst, Maxim Romanov, Sarah Bowen Savant, Masoumeh Seydi, and Peter Verkinderen · Zenodo, 2023. Data set. About 8,700 unique titles by over 3,300 authors; some 861 million words (2.4 billion with all versions)

   DOI GitHub Documentation

   key
2. 2025

   ADHFAIS Appendix 1: OpenITI NgramReader (based on OpenITI, release 2023.1.8), version 1

   Zenodo, 2025. An online application for tracing the use of words and phrases across the Arabic written tradition; companion to Digital Humanities for Arabic and Islamic Studies

   Application DOI

   key
3. 2025

   ADHFAIS Appendix 2: M10 Book Classification (based on OpenITI, release 2023.1.8), version 1

   Zenodo, 2025. An experiment in soft classification of the works of the Arabic written tradition against ten types of texts

   Application DOI

   key
4. 2014ongoing

   al-Ṯurayyā Project: Gazetteer and Geospatial Model of the Early Islamic World

   Maxim Romanov and Masoumeh Seydi · althurayya.github.io. Over 2,000 toponyms and route sections georeferenced from Georgette Cornu’s Atlas du monde arabo-islamique à l’époque classique

   Website Project page

   key
5. 2014ongoing

   OpenITI mARkdown: A Light-Weight Annotation Scheme for Arabic-Script Texts

   Structural, morphological, and semantic tagging designed as a research method; the format of the OpenITI corpus

   Description Editor highlighting (Kate)

   key
6. 2015

   betaCode for Arabic: Conversion Routines

   Python scripts for typing fully vocalized Arabic in ASCII and converting it into Arabic script and several transliteration schemes

   GitHub Read the note

Invited Talks, Guest Lectures, Keynotes

2025

1. April 2025Turkey · online

   Islamicate Digital Humanities: What is it and Why Bother?

   Invited Lecture in the course “Special Topics in Digital History”, invited by Hasan Umut, April 14, Boğaziçi University, Turkey

2024

1. November 2024Germany

   Future in the Past: Constructing the Social History of the Premodern Islamic World with Modern Computational Methods

   At Digital Humanities and Medieval Middle Eastern Texts: Assessments and Perspectives, November 8, University of Tübingen. Invited by Federico Montinaro

2. July 2024Germany

   A Corpus-Driven Approach in Religious Studies: A Case Of Islam

   University of Bochum, July 12, 2024

3. July 2024Germany

   Digital Humanities in the context of Religious Studies

   University of Bochum, July 12, 2024

2023

1. November 2023Spain

   Teaching Computational Analysis with the ‘Prosopografía de ulemas de al-Andalus’

   At Remembering al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the Mashriq, 23–24 November 2023, Escuela de Estudios Árabes, CSIC, Granada (Spain)

2. October 2023Germany

   Arabic biographical collections as a source for modeling social transformations, cultural production, and demography

   At Demography, Economy and Law in (Post-)Imperial Worlds 800 to 1600 – Latin Europe and the Western Islamic World in Comparison, Workshop, at RomanIslam Center, Universität Hamburg, October 17, 2023

2022

1. April 2022Germany

   Made by People, Tied by People: Modeling Islamic Urban Networks from Biographical Data (ca. 600–1300 CE)

   Invited Lecture at RomanIslam Center, April 20, 2022

2. April 2022USA

   To DB or not to DB: LOD-like Approach and Algorithmic Analysis

   At Digital Praxis in the Humanities (lecture series), Yale University, April 11, 2022

2021

1. September 2021Germany

   Prospects of Middle Eastern Studies in the Context of Digital Humanities

   At Third Summer School in Islamicate Digital Humanities for Scholars in Manuscript Studies, August 30 – September 10, 2021

   keynote

2020

1. December 2020France · online

   OpenITI mARkdown: Between Method and Standard

   At Étudier et publier les textes arabes avec le numérique, GIS Asie, études africaines et Moyen-Orient et mondes musulmans. December 8–10, 2020.

2. November 2020Austria

   Computational History and Historiography of the Medieval Islamic World

   An invited lecture in 070227–1 Introduction to Digital Humanities (2020W), taught by Tara Andrews, University of Vienna, November 24, 2020

3. November 2020Austria

   Data Science & Digital Humanities: Modeling Arabic Written Tradition

   An invited lecture in 040172 VU Doing Data Science (MA) (2020W), taught by Jan Fabian Ehmke & Yllka Velaj, University of Vienna, January 7, 2020

4. January 2020Austria

   Algorithmic Analysis into Social History: A Case of Medieval Islamic History

   An invited lecture in 070227 VO Introduction to Digital Humanities (2019W), taught by Tara Andrews, University of Vienna, January 7, 2020

2019

1. September 2019Spain

   “The Marvels of Old in the Digital World”: Toward the Methodological Turn in Middle Eastern Studies

   Knowledge and Power Seminar Series, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, CSIC, Madrid, September 12, 2019

2. May 2019Lebanon

   “Digital Dust of the Arabic Past”: Corpus-Based Research in Arabic & Islamic Studies

   Keynote at Digital Humanities Institute 2019, Beirut, May 3–5, 2019

   keynote
3. April 2019Russia

   Arabic History & Historiography in the Digital Age

   invited lecture at Higher School of Economics, St.Petersburg

4. February 2019Hungary

   Arabic History & Historiography in the Digital Age

   invited lecture at Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies and OTTOCONFESSIONS, ERC-funded Project (PI Dr. Tijana Krstic), Central European University, Budapest

2018

1. April 2018Qatar

   “Iftaḥ Yā Simsim!” Finding Digital Keys to the Treasures of the Arabic Written Tradition

   Keynote at “Research Data Management in Digital Humanities”, International Conference, University College London—Doha, April 17–18, 2018

   keynote
2. February 2018Austria

   “Open Sesame!” Digital Analysis of the Arabic Written Tradition: Part I—On Social History

   Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, February 6, 2018

2017

1. May 2017Netherlands

   The Corpus, The Network, & The Book Continuum

   The fifth lecture of the KITAB LUCIS lectures (others given by Sarah Savant), Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society, Leiden University

2. May 2017Netherlands

   Computational Reading of Arabic Biographical Collections

   Invited Lecture at The Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities (LUCDH), Leiden University

3. February 2017USA

   Premodern Arabic Biographical Collections: A Digital Approach

   Invited Lecture at University of Pennsylvania

4. 2017Germany

   Arabic Written Tradition & the Digital Humanities

   Invited lecture, given at Universität Hamburg (April 24, 2017) and Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (March 24, 2017)

2016

1. November 2016USA

   From Text to Map: Arabic Biographical Collections and Geospatial Analysis

   Invited Lecture, at Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University

2. June 2016Germany

   Future in the Past: Using Modern Computational Methods for the Analysis of Premodern Arabic Texts

   guest lecture at “Society and Religion in the Arab World” (an introductory Arabic and Islamic Studies seminar taught by Marie Hakenberg), Leipzig University

3. May 2016Germany

   Annotation of Geographical Data

   With Chiara Palladino; Session 14 of Sunoikisis Digital Classics 2016

4. April 2016Germany/USA

   Discovering Spatial and Chronological Patterns in Historical Texts

   invited lecture at Unlocking the Digital Humanities, A Seminar organized by Leipzig University & Tufts University, Spring 2016

5. 2016USA

   Writing a 50-volume book in 14th-century Damascus: Algorithmic Analysis, Text Reuse & the Arabic Written Tradition

   Invited lecture, given at Davidson College (November 9, 2016) and the University of Michigan (March 10, 2016)

2015

1. December 2015USA/Netherlands

   Arabic and Islamic Studies and the Digital Humanities

   The Brill Workshop on the Digital Humanities, Leiden (December 2–3) and Boston (May 1–2)

2. February 2015USA

   Digital Humanities & the Premodern Islamic World: Of Graphs, Maps, and 30,000 Muslims

   Invited public lecture, The Gustav E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, University of California—Los Angeles, February 25, 2015

3. 2015–2016USA/Germany/UK

   Of Graphs, Maps, and 30,000 Muslims: Premodern Arabic Texts & the Digital Humanities

   Invited lecture, given in different versions at the Center for Digital Humanities / Department of History, University of South Carolina (November 14, 2016); Duke University (November 11, 2016); University of Tübingen (May 11, 2016); MITH, University of Maryland (March 2, 2016); University of St Andrews (November 27, 2015); University of Manchester (November 25, 2015); SOAS, University of London (November 23, 2015)

2014

1. August 2014USA

   The Social Geography of the Islamic World (661–1300 CE): on the Method

   invited talk at PROSOP Workshop, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (August 15, 2014)

2. April 2014USA

   Distant Reading of Arabic Biographical Collections

   guest lecture at “Saints and Sinners in Muslim Literature” (Mimi Hanaoka) at the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA (April 10, 2014)

3. April 2014USA

   The Social Geography of the Islamic World (661–1300 CE)

   invited talk at the University of Richmond, Richmond, VA (April 10, 2014)

4. April 2014USA

   Future in the Past: Using Digital Methods to Study Medieval Arabic Texts

   brown bag lecture at Tufts University (April 7, 2014).

5. April 2014USA

   Classical Arabic through the Words of the Prophet: Teaching Classical Arabic in the Digital Age

   brown bag lecture at Tufts University (April 2, 2014).

6. March 2014USA

   Studying Classical Arabic Sources in the Digital Age: Social Geography & Social History

   invited talk at Holy Cross Manuscripts, Inscriptions and Documents Club the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA (March 14, 2014)

7. February 2014USA

   Building a Historical Gazetteer

   Guest Lecture at “Computational methods in the humanities,” An honors course (Prof. David J. Birnbaum) at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (February, 21, 2014)

8. February 2014USA

   Connectedness of the Islamic World (661–1300 CE)

   invited talk at the European Union Center of Excellence & European Studies Center, the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (February, 20, 2014)

9. 2014USA

   Computational Reading of Classical Arabic Sources: the Case of Biographical Collections

   Invited talk, given at the Department of Classics, Tufts University (March 10, 2014); Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (February 11, 2014); and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska–Lincoln (January 30, 2014)

Conference Papers and Presentations

2024

1. October 2024UK

   Navigating Seas of Biographies: A Computational Pipeline for Biography Identification in Historical Corpora (EIS1600 Project Paper)

   Together with Alicia González Martínez (delivered the presentation), Tariq Yousef, and Hamid Reza Hakimi, at the Arabic Pasts 2024: Histories and Historiographies, October 3–5, 2024, at Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations.

2. September 2024Germany

   Data-Driven Periodization of Classical Arabic and the Arabic Written Tradition

   At the Societies in Transition: Law, Culture and Politics in the Middle East (30th International DAVO Congress), University of Göttingen, September 26–28, 2024

3. September 2024Germany

   A Book of 30,000 Biographies: Computational Analysis of Sources of “The History of Islam” of al-Ḏahabī (d. 748/1348)

   At Textual Transmission in the Islamic Manuscript Age: On the Variance, Reception, and Usage of Arabic and Persian Works from the Middle East to the Indian Subcontinent, German-Japanese Bilateral Conference, University of Münster, September 5–7, 2024

4. August 2024Armenia

   Digital Humanities for Arabic and Islamic Studies: what is it and why bother?

   At Texts, Interpretations, and Entanglements in the Study of Islamicate History, International Conference at the Yerevan State University, August 28–30, 2024

5. June 2024USA

   Modeling Social History: A Deep Learning Approach to Arabic Historical Tradition

   Together with Alicia González Martínez, Tariq Yousef (delivered the presentation), and Hamid Reza Hakimi, at DH 2024: Reinvention & Responsibility, the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, at The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, Arlington, VA / Washington, D.C., August 6–9, 2024, Published: https://tinyurl.com/DH2024-MSH.

   poster
6. June 2024Germany

   Text Reuse in the Arabic Written Tradition: A Case of Biographical Collections

   At Making of a Sage: Corpora of Wise Sayings in a Religio-Historical Perspective, International Workshop at Göttingen University, organized by Ute Pietruschka, June 28–29, 2024

7. March 2024UAE

   Computational typology of texts as a means of modeling the development of the Arabic written tradition

   At The Praxis of Digital Humanities: Expanding Horizons and Transforming Scholarship in the Arab/Islamic world, a symposium, March 6–7, 2024, Department of Arabic and Translation Studies (ATS), American University of Sharjah (AUS)

2023

1. December 2023Japan

   Ṣundūq al-ġarāʾib fī-l-ʿaṣr al-raqāʾim: Reading Medieval Texts in the Digital Age

   At The Middle East and Europe, 1097–1517, Waseda University, Tokyo, 9–10 December, 2023

2. October 2023UK

   Modelling the Development of Premodern Islamic Societies from Biographical and Historical Data

   (together with: Hamid Reza Hakimi, Lisa Mischer, and Tariq Yousef), at Arabic Pasts 2023, 5–6 October 2023, Aga Khan University—London

3. September 2023Bulgaria

   Enhancing State-of-the-Art NLP Models for Classical Arabic

   Together with Tariq Yousef, Lisa Mischer (delivered presentation), and Hamid Reza Hakimi, at Ancient Language Processing Workshop, at Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing, September 8, Varna, Bulgaria

4. June 2023USA

   OpenITI mARkdown: Balancing Between a Standard and a Research Method

   At Digital Publication of Right-to-Left Script Corpora, June 29–30, 2023; The University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

5. June 2023Germany

   Finding and Linking Information in Arabic Historical Texts

   (together with Lisa Mischer, Hamid Reza Hakimi, Tariq Yousef), at Data Linking Workshop 2023: Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing – Challenges in the Humanities, Center for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Universität Hamburg, June 27–28, 2023

6. March 2023Germany

   Algorithmic Analysis into Social History

   At LOOP Workshop, Ruhr Universität Bochum, March, 9–10, 2023

2022

1. September 2022Germany

   Similarity-Based Networks for Islamicate Digital Humanities

   At “Computational Contributions to the Social and Cultural Histories of the Islamicate World”, a Panel, co-organized with Till Grallert, at 34. Deutscher Orientalistentag 12.-17.09.2022, Freie Universität Berlin (100 Jahre DOT)

2. July 2022Germany

   Modeling the Development of Premodern Islamic Societies through Computational Analysis of Written Sources

   At Linked Open Tafsir Conference 2022, July 18 -20, 2022, Bad Homburg, Germany

2021

1. October 2021Germany

   Being Pragmatic: Data and Authority Files in the OpenITI Corpus

   At <AUTHOR><TITLE><PLACE>: Authority Records and Manuscripts in Libraries and Research (hybrid workshop), a workshop co-organised by the “Orient-Digital” project at Berlin State Library and “Bibliotheca Arabica” (Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Leipzig) October 27–29, 2021

2. October 2021online

   OpenITI: The Corpus for The Field

   At “Digitalizing Humanities. Humanizing digitalization”, online congress, organized by Enrique Capdevila (Petrifying Wealth-IH) and Arturo Guerrero (EuQu-ILC), October 20–21, 2021

2020

1. October 2020USA · online

   One Source to Rule Them All: Constructing the Master Chronicle for Islamic History

   At Middle East Studies Association 54th Annual Meeting (online), October 5–17, 2020

2. October 2020USA · online

   Big Data and Mega Corpora in the Middle East Studies: The Case of Arabic Written Tradition

   At Middle East Studies Association 54th Annual Meeting (online), October 5–17, 2020

3. August 2020Germany · online

   Digital Humanities with non-European sources: The Case of Arabic

   At “Hack the Middle East”: an Introduction to Digital Humanities, an Online Workshop, Die Junge Akademie, August 11–12, 2020

4. July 2020Germany · online

   OpenITI

   At Digitalisierungsworkshop der orientalistischen Fächer BA/ER (Workshop on Digital Tools in Oriental Studies BA/ER), Universität Bamberg & Universität Erlangen, July 4, 2020

2019

1. October 2019USA/UK

   Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed: Computational Analysis of Writing Practices of Islamic Scholars

   At: • Middle East Studies Association 53rd Annual Meeting, November 14–17, New Orleans, LA, USA; • Arabic Pasts: Histories and Historiography, 17–19 October 2019, Aga Khan University, London

2. July 2019Netherlands

   Open Islamicate Texts Initiative: A Machine-Readable Corpus of Texts Produced in the Premodern Islamicate World

   At Digital Humanities 2019, Utrecht University, July 9–12 (In collaboration with: Matthew Thomas Miller, Sarah Bowen Savant, and Masoumeh Seydi)

   poster
3. July 2019Netherlands

   al-Ṯurayyā, the Gazetteer and the Geo-Spatial Model of the Early Islamic World

   At Digital Humanities 2019, Utrecht University, July 9–12 (In collaboration with: Masoumeh Seydi, who also presented)

4. July 2019Netherlands

   Orbis-in-a-box (OIB): Modeling Historical Geographical Networks

   At Digital Humanities 2019, Utrecht University, July 9–12 (In collaboration with: Masoumeh Seydi, James Ballie, Karl Grossner, and Rainer Simon)

   poster
5. June 2019Japan · online

   Computational Historiography: al-Ḏahabī’s Taʾrīḫ al-islām and His Sources

   At the Sixth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies, Tokyo, Japan, June 15–17 2019

6. April 2019Russia

   Interconnectedness of Texts and Computational Modeling of the Arabic Written tradition

   (in Russian: “Преемственность текстов и компьютерное моделирование арабской письменной традиции”), at The 41st Annual Session of St Petersburg Arabists, The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. April 8–10, 2019.

7. February 2019UK

   Modeling Society from Text: a Method in Arabic Studies

   At Decoding the Past. Digital Tools for the Analysis of Historical Data, a Workshop, University of London, February 21–22, 2019

2018

1. December 2018Spain

   al-Ḏahabī’s treatment of his Andalusi sources: toward understanding of compilation methods of medieval historians

   At The Maghrib in the Mashriq (i.e.: Islamic West in Islamic East), a congress, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 20–21 December 2018

2. December 2018Netherlands

   Prospects of Corpus-Based Research: Computational Methods and the OpenITI Corpus

   At Whither Islamicate Digital Humanities, Academy Colloquium, The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, 13–15 December 2018 (organized by Christian Lange & Melle Lyklema, Utrecht University)

3. May 2018Italy

   Modeling Arabic Written Tradition: Enhancing Traditional Text analysis with Computational Techniques

   At Launching RASCIO: Reader, Author, Scholar in Context of Information Overflow, a Workshop organized by Dr. Élise Franssen, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, May 24, 2018

2017

1. November 2017USA

   Looking for the author behind the words: Stylometric Analysis of al-Ḏahabī’s (d. 1347) Writings

   At A New Corpus for the Islamicate World and Methods for Its Exploration, a Panel co-organized by Sarah Savant and Matthew Miller, at Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.

2. October 2017Austria

   Modeling Social History of the Premodern Islamic World

   At Evolution of Social Complexity, a Workshop organized by Complexity Science Hub Vienna, October 2–3, 2017

3. September 2017Spain

   Digital Humanities in the field of Islamic studies

   At Digital Humanities & the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb: Challenges and Opportunities, a Research Seminar at Escuela de Estudios Árabes—Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Cuesta del Chapiz, 22, Granada

4. May 2017Italy

   Why do we need a corpus and computational methods?

   At Navigating the House of Wisdom: How to write a good book in the medieval Middle East, a Workshop at the University of Milan, May 25th-26th 2017.

5. April 2017United Arab Emirates

   Algorithmic Analysis of Premodern Arabic Biographical Collections: Approach, Infrastructure, Open Data

   At Digital Humanities Abu Dhabi—DHAD, a Workshop at New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 10–12 April 2017

6. January 2017Germany

   80/20: Facilitating Computational Analysis with Named-Entities Recognition

   At Digital Infrastructure for Named Entities Data, a Workshop, Leipzig University, January 11–13, 2017

2016

1. December 2016Spain

   An Accidental Gazetteer: Linked Data for Historical Geography of the Classical Islamic World

   At Linked Pasts 2016, a symposium series dedicated to facilitating practical and pragmatic developments in Linked Open Data in History, Classics, Geography and Archaeology, December 15–16, 2016 (hosted at: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid)

2. November 2016USA

   Of A Network and A Node: ‘The History of Islam’ of al-Ḏahabī (d. 1348) and its place in the Premodern Arabic Textual Tradition

   At Networked Texts: New Ways of Seeing the Arabic Textual Tradition (750–1500), a Panel co-organized by Sarah Savant and Maxim Romanov, at Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, Boston, MA

3. September 2016USA

   Presentation on Islamic[ate] DH Projects at Leipzig University

   At Activism, Advocacy, and Scholarship on Islam in the Digital Realm: Prospects, Progress, and Challenges, a workshop organized by the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies & Civilizations, Boston University (September 16 & 17, 2016)

2015

1. October 2015USA

   “al-Ḏahabī’s Monster”: Dissecting a 50-Volume Arabic Chronicle-cum-Biographical Collection from the 14th Century CE

   At Distant Reading & the Islamic Archive, Conference at Brown University, October 16, 2015

2. September 2015UK

   The Taʾrīḫ al-islām of al-Ḏahabī (d. 748/1347 CE): Computational Exploration of the Life-Cycle of a 50-Volume Arabic Chronicle-cum-Biographical Collection

   At Arabic Pasts: Histories and Historiographies: Research Workshop, co-hosted by the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations and SOAS, University of London (September 25–26, 2015)

3. July 2015USA

   Cultural Production in the Islamic World (600–1900 CE): mining an Ottoman bibliographical collection from the early 20th century

   At The Keystone Digital Humanities Conference, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (July 22–24, 2015)

4. May 2015USA

   Analyzing Arabic Biographical Collections at Scale

   At Digital Ottoman Platform Workshop, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ (June 8–12, 2015)

5. May 2015USA

   The Writing Culture of Nīshāpūr in the 11th Century

   [In collaboration with Sarah Savant, Aga Khan University, London; paper delivered by Sarah Savant], at Iranian Cities from the Arab Conquest to the Early Modern Period, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (May 1–2).

2014

1. November 2014USA

   Exploring Islamic Written Legacy: Computational Reading of Hadiyyaŧ al-ʿārifīn

   At Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.

2. March 2014USA

   Computational Processing of Toponymic Data from classical Arabic Sources

   At Working with Text in a Digital Age, A Workshop at Tufts University (the Perseus Project) (March 29, 2014).

3. February 2014USA

   Visualizing Islamic Geography at Scale

   At Data Big and Small: Computer Science, the Humanities and Social Science: Conversations between representatives from Leipzig, Northeastern, Princeton & Tufts, a workshop at Tufts University (the Perseus Project) (February 3–4, 2014).

2013

1. October 2013USA

   Abstract Models for Islamic History

   At Digital Humanities and Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI (October 24–25, 2013).

2. October 2013USA

   Islamic World Connected (661–1300 CE)

   At Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.

3. April 2013USA

   Toward Abstract Models for Islamic History

   Poster at Word, Space, Time: Digital Perspectives on the Classical World, an interdisciplinary conference organized by the Digital Classics Association, University at Buffalo, SUNY, April 5–6, 2013

   poster
4. March 2013USA

   Exploratory Analysis of Arabic Biographical Collections: the Case of al-Ḏahabī's (d. 1347 CE) Taʾrīḫ al-islām

   At: • the 223rd Meeting of the American Oriental Society (AOS), Portland, OR; • the 8th Annual Pearl Kibre Medieval Study Conference: “New Media and the Middle Ages”, The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY.

5. February 2013USA

   «Connectedness» of the Islamic World (600–1300 CE)

   At 7th Annual Near Eastern Studies Graduate Student Colloquium, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

2012

1. November 2012USA

   Social History of the Muslim World in the Digital Age: Making Sense of 29,000 Biographies from al-Ḏahabī's «History of Islam»

   At Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, Denver, CO.

2. November 2012USA

   Social History of the Muslim World in the Digital Age: Making Sense of 29,000 Biographies from al-Ḏahabī's «History of Islam»

   At Cyberinfrastructure Days, University of Michigan, November 7–8, 2012. Received: “People's Choice Award Winner”

   poster
3. October 2012USA

   Writing the Digital History of the Premodern Muslim World, 670–1300 CE: Exploratory Analysis of Primary Sources

   At Interdisciplinary Workshop under the rubric “Forum on Research in Medieval Studies” (FoRMS), the Medieval Lunch Series, University of Michigan.

4. August 2012USA

   Mining pre-Modern Islamic Sources

   At “Working with Text in a Digital Age,” the summer institute at Tufts U, Medford, MA.

5. April 2012Russia

   Dreaming Ḥanbalites: Dream-Tales in Prosopographical Dictionaries

   (in Russian), at the 34th Annual Session of St. Petersburg Arabists, SPbIOS/IOM of RAS.

6. April 2012Belgium

   Digital History of the Muslim World: Computer-Aided Analysis of Biographical Dictionaries

   At Methods and means for digital analysis of ancient and medieval texts and manuscripts, a workshop at the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven & the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium (KVAB), Brussels.

2010

1. November 2010USA

   «Popular» Preaching in the Sunnī Context and the Legitimization of Waʿẓ in the Late 12th Century CE

   At Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA.

2009

1. November 2009USA

   Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal's (d. 241/855) Argumentative Strategies

   At Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Meeting, Boston, MA.

2. April 2009USA

   Dreaming Ḥanbalites

   At Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies, conference, University of Michigan.

2004

1. March 2004Russia

   The Origins of the Term Ṣūfī

   (in Russian), at the 26th Annual Session of St. Petersburg Arabists, SPbIOS/IOM of RAS.

2003

1. December 2003Russia

   The Paradigm of the Science of Ḥadīṯ (ʿilm al-ḥadīṯ)

   (in Russian), at the Annual Academic Session, SPbIOS/IOM of RAS.

2. April 2003Russia

   Argumentation with Ḥadīṯ Reports in Ibn al-Jawzī’s Talbīs Iblīs (“Devil’s Delusions”)

   (in Russian), at the 25th Annual Session of St. Petersburg Arabists, SPbIOS/IOM of RAS

2002

1. April 2002Russia

   Ibn al-Jawzī’s Image in the Western Scholarship

   (in Russian), at the 24th Annual Session of St. Petersburg Arabists, SPbIOS/IOM of RAS.

Panels, Workshops, and Roundtables Organized

2025

1. July 2025Germany

   From Classical ML to AI in Arabic and Islamic Studies: A Hands-On Workshop

   (part of EIS1600 project activities), a 4-day workshop at Afrika-Asien Institut, Universität Hamburg (EIS1600 Project), with Tariq Yousef, Ryan Muther, and Alicia González Martínez. Funding: DFG, EIS1600 Emmy Noether Project

2024

1. September 2024Germany

   Stylometry and the Digital Humanities: Unraveling Authorship and Periodization in Arabic Textual Traditions

   a panel co-organized with Till Grallert and Maroussia Bednarkiewicz at the 30th International Congress of Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient (DAVO), Göttingen, 26–28 September 2024

2022

1. September 2022Germany

   Computational Contributions to the Social and Cultural Histories of the Islamicate World

   a panel co-organized with Till Grallert, at: 34. Deutscher Orientalistentag 12.-17.09.2022, Freie Universität Berlin (100 Jahre DOT)

2020

1. July 2020Austria/UK · online

   Stylometry Workshop with Maciej Eder

   Department of History, University of Vienna & The KITAB Project, Aga Khan University, London. July 1–3, 2020.

2019

1. June 2019Japan

   Approaching Mamlūk Historiography: Narratologically, Literarily, Computationally

   A panel at the Sixth Conference of the School of Mamlūk Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo, June 15–17, 2019

2018

1. July 2018Austria

   ORBIS-esque Hackathon

   Department of History, University of Vienna (co-organized with Tara Andrews and Mária Varga); planning document: tinyurl.com/orbis-esque.

2017

1. November 2017USA

   A New Corpus for the Islamicate World and Methods for Its Exploration

   a panel co-organized with Dr. Sarah Savant (AKU–London) and Dr. Matthew Thomas Miller (UMD) at MESA, Washington, DC–2017

2016

1. November 2016USA

   Networked Texts: New Ways of Seeing the Arabic Textual Tradition (750–1500)

   a panel co-organized with Dr. Sarah Savant (AKU–London), MESA, Boston–2016

2. November 2016USA

   Non-traditional methods for Teaching Traditional Languages

   a roundtable at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Boston 2016

2015

1. December 2015Germany

   Analyzing Text Reuse at Scale / Working with Big Humanities Data

   At Leipzig University, organized by Thomas Köntges & Maxim Romanov (within the framework of Leipzig Workshop Week, 14–18 December 2015).

2. December 2015Germany

   Digital Arabic and Digital Persian Research Workshop

   At Leipzig University, organized by Maxim Romanov (within the framework of Leipzig Workshop Week, 14–18 December 2015).

2013

1. November 2013USA

   Digital Humanities in Middle East Studies

   (organized together with Børre Ludvigsen and Will Hanley), a series of two panels and a roundtable: “Traditional Sources, Nontraditional Methods,” “Digital Communication,” and Roundtable at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), New Orleans 2013.

2010

1. November 2010USA

   Islamic Preaching

   a panel at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), San Diego, 2010

Teaching

1. 2023–2024Historical methods · DH

   Computational Analysis of Data from Audition Certificates, with R

   Universität Hamburg · Winter 2023/24

   Co-taught in tandem with Konrad Hirschler’s course, using data from the Audition Certificates Platform.

   Course site

2. 2023Historical methods · DH

   Digital Humanities in African-Asian Studies: Analysis of Prosopographical Data with R

   Universität Hamburg · Summer 2023

   Built around the Prosopografía de ulemas de al-Andalus (eea.csic.es/pua).

   Course site

3. 2022Historical methods · DH

   Text Analysis in R

   Universität Hamburg · Summer 2022

   Course site

4. 2022Historical methods · DH

   Digital Humanities in Middle Eastern Studies

   Universität Hamburg · Winter 2021/22

   Course site

5. 2021GIS · DH

   GIS Inquiries with R

   University of Vienna · Summer 2021 (SE seminar, PM 3)

   Course site

6. 2017–2020Historical methods · DH

   DH Methods: Historical Inquiries with R

   University of Vienna · Summer 2020 (text analysis module), Summer 2019, Winter 2017/18 (SE seminar, PM 3)

   Course site (2020)

7. 2018–2020DH

   Tools and Techniques for Digital Humanities

   University of Vienna · Winter 2020, Summer 2019, Summer 2018 (KU Methodenkurs)

8. 2018History

   Of Arabs, Persians and Turks: Patterns of Dynastic Rule in the Islamic World (c. 600–1600 CE)

   University of Vienna · Summer 2018 (MA Proseminar)

9. 2017–2018History

   The Near East at the Time of the First Crusade, 1045–1144

   University of Vienna · Winter 2017/18 (BA Proseminar), co-taught with Tara Andrews

10. 2017–2018History

    The Medieval Near East and Europe according to Muslims, Christians, and Jews: Comparative Perspectives

    University of Vienna · Winter 2017/18 (seminar), co-taught with Tara Andrews

11. 2016–2017Islamicate texts · DH

    Islamicate World 2.0: Studying Islamic Cultures through Computational Textual Analysis

    University of Maryland (College Park) and Leipzig University · Winter 2016/17, co-taught with Matthew Thomas Miller

12. 2015Classical Arabic · DH

    Classical Arabic Through the Words of the Prophet

    Tufts University · Spring 2015

    An introduction to classical Arabic through the corpus of Ḥadīṯ, taught from a frequency-based reader generated for the course.

13. 2014–2015Text analysis · DH

    Introduction to Text Mining for Students of the Humanities

    Tufts University · 2014–2015

14. 2014History · DH

    Mapping the Classical Islamic World

    Tufts University · Winter 2014

    Digital project: mapping data from al-Muqaddasī’s geographical treatise (10th century CE).

15. 2012History · DH

    The First Millennium of the Islamic Near East, 600–1600 CE

    University of Michigan · Fall 2012, as teaching assistant for Michael Bonner

16. 2010–2011Religion · History

    Introduction to Islam

    University of Michigan · Spring 2011, Winter 2011 (as teaching assistant for Sherman Jackson), Spring 2010

17. 2007–2010Language

    Elementary Modern Standard Arabic

    University of Michigan · 2007–2010

18. 2006–2007Classical language

    Elementary Classical Arabic

    University of Michigan · 2006–2007

Workshops and Summer Schools Taught

1. September 2025Switzerland

   Summer School on Digital Humanities for Islamic Studies

   University of Bern, September 1–4, 2025. Organizers: Tobias Hodel and Serena Tolino

2. July 2025Germany

   From Classical ML to AI in Arabic and Islamic Studies: A Hands-On Workshop

   A 4-day workshop at the Asien-Afrika-Institut, Universität Hamburg, organized within EIS1600 with Tariq Yousef, Ryan Muther, and Alicia González Martínez

3. September 2024Germany

   Introduction to Digital Humanities in Islamic Studies: A Hands-On Training

   A 1-day workshop at the Seminar für Arabistik/Islamwissenschaft, Universität Göttingen, with Jens Scheiner, September 25, 2024

4. September 2024Spain

   Computational Analysis of Andalusian Prosopography

   A 5-day workshop on the Prosopografía de ulemas de al-Andalus (eea.csic.es/pua) at the Escuela de Estudios Árabes, Granada, with Mayte Penelas and Maribel Fierro, as part of the project Al-Andalus y el Magrib en el Oriente islámico: movilidad, migración y memoria (AMOI-II)

5. December 2023Japan

   Intensive Workshop in Islamic Digital Humanities

   A 2-day workshop organized with Wakako Kumakura, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, December 16–17, 2023

6. July 2018Belgium

   Digital Islamic Humanities: A 3-Day Intensive Course

   Ghent University, July 2–4, 2018, in collaboration with the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities. Plan and materials: dih-sms2018-ughent.github.io

7. November 2017Netherlands

   Workshop on Digital Humanities in Islamic and Arabic Studies

   SENSIS ERC Project (PI Christian Lange), Utrecht University, November 30–December 1, 2017

8. July 2016Germany

   From Text to Map

   A two-week intensive introduction (32 contact hours) to working with humanities data in digital mapping environments, co-taught with David J. Wrisley (American University of Beirut) at Culture & Technology, the European Summer University in Digital Humanities, Leipzig University

9. February 2015USA

   Digital Humanities & Islamic Studies

   University of California, Los Angeles. Organized by Asma Sayeed and the Gustav E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies

10. October 2014USA

    Textual Corpora and the Digital Islamic Humanities

    Brown University; session leader together with Elli Mylonas, organized by Elias Muhanna (details)

Supervision

1. 2025–Ph.D.

   Hamid Reza Hakimi

   Patterns in the Financial History of the Islamic World (1–1000 AH / 600–1600 CE): Computational Analysis of Data from Chronicles

   Universität Hamburg, African and Asian Studies · main advisor

2. 2022M.A.

   Lisa Mischer

   A Digital Humanities Approach to Biographical Dictionaries from the Arabic Written Tradition: Extraction and Enrichment of Historical Data

   Universität Leipzig, Digital Humanities · external advisor

3. 2022B.A.

   M. Xenia Kudela

   Measuring Style: Stylometric Analysis of Collaborative Authorship between Ṭāhā Ḥusayn and Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm in “The Enchanted Castle” (al-Qaṣr al-masḥūr)

   Freie Universität Berlin, Arabic Studies · external advisor

4. 2022Ph.D.

   Masoumeh Seydi

   Geospatial Analysis and Modeling of Textual Descriptions of Pre-modern Geography

   Universität Leipzig, Computer Science / Digital Humanities · external advisor

5. 2015B.A. Honors

   Cameron Jackson

   An Interactive Map of the Classical Islamic World

   Tufts University, Computer Science and Arabic Studies

Third-Party Funding

1. 2021–2027

   Emmy Noether Programme Grant, German Research Foundation (DFG). About €1,900,000

2. 2012–2013

   Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. $24,000

3. 2012

   Rackham Research Fellowship, University of Michigan. $3,000

Fellowships, Awards, and Honors

1. 2015–2016

   Research Fellowship (Visiting Fellow), Islamic Legal Studies Program, Harvard Law School (declined)

2. 2013

   Hajja Razia Sharif Sheikh Scholarship Award in Islamic Studies, University of Michigan

Service to the Field

1. 2021, 2023, 2025

   Panel member (SH5 “Cultures and Cultural Production”), ERC Consolidator Grant calls, European Research Council

2. 2015–

   Reviewer for journals and funding bodies at the intersection of digital humanities, Arabic and Islamic studies, and history. Recent reviews for Journal of Abbasid Studies, Journal of Digital Islamicate Research, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Temenos, Journal of Law and Religion

3. 2013–

   Regular consultation on the design of digital projects in the historical study of the Islamic world, including over a dozen ERC-funded and academy projects in the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Israel, Japan, Austria, and Germany

Professional Membership

1. 2024–

   Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants (UEAI)

2. 2023–

   School of Abbasid Studies (SAS)

3. 2016–

   Middle East Medievalists (MEM)

4. 2012–

   American Oriental Society (AOS)

5. 2008–

   Middle East Studies Association (MESA)

Skills

1. Languages

   Russian (native) · Arabic (advanced, modern standard and classical) · English (near-native) · German (B1) · French (reading)

2. Computing

   R, Python, QGIS, LaTeX; cluster computing; machine learning