Palestine’s Birzeit University set for new president

The board of trustees confirmed professor of history at Brown University, Beshara Doumani as the new head, who will take over from Abdullatif Abuhijleh at the end of the academic year.

Doumani is the founding director of Brown University's Center for Middle East Studies and holds Brown University's inaugural Mahmoud Darwish Chair for Palestinian Studies.

“Doumani's research focuses on social histories of ordinary people who have been neglected in mainstream scholarship,” state news agency WAFA said.

The professor has also written on Palestinian peasants, merchants as well as women and family life in Palestine during the Ottoman period. 

Doumani also published a book on academic freedom and is the editor of the Palestinian Studies book series with the University of California Press.

Having focused on areas marginalised by mainstream Middle East-related academia, Doumani has worked extensively to expand the field of Palestinian studies.

In 2012, he founded the New Directions in Palestinian Studies research initiative at Brown University, which includes an annual workshop, a post-doctoral fellowship and a book series.

From 2008 to 2010, Doumani led a team that implemented a strategic plan for the establishment of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Palestine.

“Doumani joined Brown University after 14 years at the University of California, Berkeley, and eight years at the University of Pennsylvania," WAFA added.

"He was awarded fellowships by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University”.

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