Ines Aščerić-Todd

Head of Department, Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures

Biography

Background

Dr Ines Aščerić-Todd joined IMES as Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures in September 2018. She started her university education with a degree in Arabic with Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from Durham, after which she focussed her academic interests on Islam and Islamic history in the Ottoman context, which led her to obtain an MPhil in Ottoman Turkish Studies and a DPhil in Oriental Studies, both from the University of Oxford. Before starting her current post in Edinburgh, Dr Aščerić-Todd has worked as an Arabic and Ottoman specialist at Durham University Library, an Islamic and Ottoman manuscripts specialist at Princeton University, and has taught Arab-Islamic history, culture and literature at the American University of Sharjah.

Qualifications

  • DPhil in Oriental Studies, University of Oxford
  • MPhil in Ottoman Turkish Studies, University of Oxford
  • BA (Hons) in Arabic with Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Durham University

 

Undergraduate teaching

  • Islamic and Middle Eastern Cultures (course organiser)
  • Modern Arabic Literature (course organiser)

  • The Ottoman World: the Society, Culture and Legacy of Islam's Last Empire (course organiser)

  • Islamic History B: From the Crusades to the 'Gunpowder Empires' (team taught)

  • Introduction to Islam (team taught)

  • From Athena to Edina: Antiquity in Revolution between Greece and Scotland (guest lecturer at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology)

Postgraduate teaching

  • The Ottoman World: the Society, Culture and Legacy of Islam's Last Empire (PG version, course organiser)
  • Research Methods and Problems in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (team taught)
  • Critical Readings in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies  (team taught)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I am open to queries for PhD supervision in the following subject areas: any aspect of Ottoman society and history, especially cultural and religious; Sufism and dervish orders; interfaith relations and conversions to Islam in the Ottoman Empire; topics related to Ottoman, Turkish, and post-classical and modern Arabic literature.

Current PhD students supervised

  • Moh Zaimil Alivin, Muslims in the Periphery: Intersectionality of Religion, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Middle Eastern Diaspora Novels (IMES PhD)
  • Erin Robbins, Revolution and religion in the works of Adonis (IMES PhD).
  • Fidan Cheikosman, The Significance of the Insignificance of the Everyday in Elif Shafak’s and Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: A Study of Turkishness from an Aesthetic, Geo-Political, and Historical Perspective (Comparative Literature PhD).
  • Farah Taleb, Women artists inspired by Islamic art: study of the influence of identity and labelling on the creation and the perception of art (IMES PhD).

Research summary

Dr Aščerić-Todd's research interests are in cultural and religious history of the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire.

She is particularly interested in Sufism and dervish orders, interfaith relations in the Ottoman Empire and wider Middle East during the Ottoman period, Islamic and Ottoman urban institutions, crafts and trade-guilds, and all aspects of Islamic chivalry/futuwwa. She also teaches and has interests in the field of modern Arabic literature.

Subject areas

  • History of the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman Europe
  • Islamic history, particularly the themes of Islamisation and urbanisation
  • Interfaith relations and conversions to Islam in the Ottoman Empire
  • Ottoman urban institutions and architecture
  • Sufism and dervish orders
  • Islamic chivalry and chivalric associations
  • Islamic and Middle Eastern masculinities
  • Post-classical and modern Arabic literature
  • Islamic codicology

Research activities

View all 41 activities on Research Explorer

View all 23 publications on Research Explorer

This article was published on