Affiliated Faculty

Muriam Haleh 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.