Dr. Oweidat is an intellectual historian and Assistant Professor of History at Kansas State University. She specializes in the religions, cultures, and politics of the Middle East and North Africa.
In September 2021, she will start a fellowship at the Wilson Center to continue research for her book, A Million Clicks to Freedom: The Battlefield of Ideas in the Arab World. This project, which previously received a $150,000 grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation, explores the virtual and digital spaces being utilized by creative voices of reform in the Arab world and highlights their potential for offering solutions to seemingly intransigent problems related to MENA governance and politics.
Teaching
Kansas State University
Graduate Courses:
HIST 852 A History and Security of the modern Middle East
Undergraduate Courses
HIST 112 A World History from 1450
HIS 598 A History of Islam
HIST 598 Intellectual History of Islamic taught in the 20th Century
History of the Modern Middle East
Georgetown University
Graduate Courses:
HIST 852 A History and Security of the modern Middle East
University of Oxford
Undergraduate Courses
Classical (Medieval) Arabic
Research
Dr. Oweidat is in the final stages of editing a manuscript entitled, Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam: The Case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd. This book concerns the efforts of Muslim intellectuals to reconcile their religious identity with liberal values in the contemporary world.
Reform and its Perils in Contemporary Islam: The Case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd
Manuscript in final stages of editing
Starting September 2021, Dr. Oweidat will start a fellowship at the Wilson center to conduct research on her new book “A Million Clicks to Freedom: The Battlefield of Ideas in the Arabic-speaking World“. This project examines the online reformers and dissidents in the Middle East and North Africa region. The book will examine their tremendous potential in offering solutions to seemingly intransigent problems related to MENA region governance and politics.
A Million Clicks to Freedom: The Virtual Battlefield of Ideas in the Arabic-Speaking World
Manuscript in Progress
Academic Conferences
Dr. Oweidat participated in the following academic conferences.
SCRIPS – Student Conference on Religion and the Public Sphere: Faith & Place: Religion, Ecology and Conflict in Contested Spaces, 2020
Middle East Studies Association’s Annual Conference, November 2018, San Antonio, TX
Doubt and Faith in Islam and Judaism
SCRIPS – Student Conference on Religion and the Public Sphere: Religious Pluralism in a Secular Age, 2018
Doubt and Faith in Islam and Judaism, January 2018
RPS – Religion in the Public Sphere, Religion and Governance: Civil Society at Home and Abroad, 2017
WIAC VI – Religion and World Affairs: The Emerging Nexus, 2016
Middle East Studies Association’s Annual Conference, November 2016, Boston, MA
The New Generation of Islamic Thought Reformists and Their Use of Social Media
Middle East Studies Association’s Annual Conference, November 2014, Washington DC
Contesting Secular-Modernist and Islamist Thought: Global Dynamics, Local Politics and Muslim Intellectuals in a Changing Arab World
Middle East Studies Association’s Annual Conference, November 2010, San Diego, CA
The Intellectual Contribution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd
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