Dr. Sean Foley

CONTACT:

E-mail: sfoley@mtsu.edu

Phone: (615) 904-8294
Office
Location: Peck Hall Room 262

MTSU Box 23

Murfreesboro, TN 37132

Personal Web Page: www.seanfoley.org

Dr. Foley is on leave from August 2010 until July 2011.

TEACHING FIELDS:

Middle East and Islamic History

The Arab-Israeli Dispute

World History


COURSES:
History 1120 (Post-1500 World Civilization)
History 3080 (The Arab-Israeli Dispute)
History 4440 (Middle East History)
History 5440 (Middle East History, Graduate)
History 6304 (Middle East Historiography, Graduate)
Middle East 2100 (Introduction to Middle East Studies)


RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Middle East and Islamic History

Muslim Social Movements

Middle East Politics/Arab-Israeli Dispute

Persian Gulf
Atlantic History
Indian Ocean & Southeast Asia

PUBLICATIONS:
(A Partial List)

The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Press, 2010).
Please copy and paste this address to your browser url: http://www.rienner.com/title/The_Arab_Gulf_States_Beyond_Oil_and_Islam

“All I want is equality with girls: Gender and Social Change in the Twenty-First Century Gulf,” Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs, Volume 14, No 1, March 2010.

“Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE,” in Guide to Islamist Movements, edited by Barry Rubin (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2010).

“Islam and Social Change in the Atlantic Basin,” The Journal of World History, Volume 30, No. 3, September 2009.


“The Iraq Status-of-Forces Agreement, Iran, and Guantanamo Bay,” Rutgers Law Record, Volume 34, No. 1, Spring 2009.

“Temporal and Spiritual Power in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Politics: Shaykh Khalid, Gürcü Necib Pasha, and the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya,” Türkiyat Araştırmaları, Volume 9, Fall 2008.

“The Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya, Islamic Sainthood, and Religion in Modern Times,” The Journal of World History, Volume 19, No. 4, December 2008.

ACADEMIC PRESENTATIONS: (A Partial List)
“‘If You Want A Future Baby, Why Don’t You Get a Past?’  Men, Women, and Twenty-First Century Gulf Society.” Paper presented to the “Exeter University 2010 Gulf Studies Conference. The twenty-first century Gulf: Challenges to Identity.” Exeter, United Kingdom, July 2010.

“The Sons of Anatolia Return to the Scorching Sands: Turkey and the Arab Gulf States in the Twenty-First Century.” Paper presented at Izmir University, Izmir, Turkey, May 2010.

“The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam.” Paper presented to the Middle East Institute, Washington, DC, April 2010Please copy and paste this address to your browser url:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njGusBWioes.

“Camels and Cadillacs: Down and Out on the Ninetieth Floor – New Perspectives on Politics and Society in the Gulf.” Paper presented to the American University in Beirut Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, Beirut, Lebanon, March 2010.

“Airlift for Allah: The United States and the 1952 hajj.” Paper presented to “America and the Middle East: An Interdisciplinary Conference.” The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud Center for American Studies & Research, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, January 2010.

“Shaykh Khalid and the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya: A Sufi Order and Social Movement in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman World.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Boston, MA, November 2009.

“Revolution or Secular Tajdid: Islam, Thomas Jefferson, and the Rise of American Liberty.”  Paper presented to the American University in Beirut, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud Center for American Studies & Research, January 2009. Please copy and paste this address to your browser url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQwz8y9R-N8.

FELLOWSHIPS: (A Partial List)
Fulbright Fellowship, Malaysia, 2010-2011; The ten-month fellowship funds research for a book project on the influence of the nineteenth-century Islamic/Egyptian journal al-Manar and Arab Muslims generally on Southeast Asia between 1875 and 1935.

MTSU Funding for Liberal Arts Grant-Writers (FLAG Grant), 2009; Grant helped cover the costs of applying for a 2010-2011 Fulbright grant to Southeast Asia.

MTSU Faculty Research/Creative Projects Committee Summer Grant, 2009; Grant funded the research and writing of the monograph Shaykh Khalid and Modern Islam: A Critical Study of the Foundations of Contemporary Islamic Thought.

MTSU Faculty Research/Creative Projects Committee Summer Grant, 2007; Grant funded research and writing of the monograph The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam.

Smith Richardson Foundation Junior Faculty Research Grant, 2007-2010; Grant funded the research and writing for the monograph The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam.  The grant also provided funds for multiple research trips, promotion of the completed book, and a reduction of teaching responsibilities in 2007 and 2008.

WORK IN PROGRESS: (A Partial List)
Shaykh Khalid and Modern Islam (revising for publication).

“Hagiography, Government Records, and Early Modern Sufi Brotherhoods: Shaykh Khālid and Social Movement Theory,” in Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, edited by John Curry and Erik Ohlander (New York: Routledge Press, In Press).

“The Gulf Arabs and the New Iraq: The Most to Gain, The Most to Lose,” in After the Dictator: The Rebirth of Iraq, edited by Barry Rubin (New York: M.E. Sharpe, In Press).

“Turkey and the Gulf States in the Twenty-First Century,” Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs, In Press.

OUTSIDE INTERESTS/PUBLIC SERVICE:
 (A Partial List)
 “US-Iranian Relations and Turkish-Iranian Relations,” Voice of America Azerbaijani Service, August 19, 2010 Please copy and paste this address to your browser url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhGKTwWecuQ.

“The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam, Pt. 2,” Cover to Cover (KPFA FM, Berkeley, CA), July 14, 2010.

“The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam, Pt. 1,” Cover to Cover (KPFA FM, Berkeley, CA), July 7, 2010.

 “The firing of General McChrystal and the War in Afghanistan,” Inside Politics (News Channel 5+, WTVF, Nashville, TN), June 26, 2010.

 “The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam,” MTSU on the Record (WMOT FM, Murfreesboro, TN), April 25, 2010.

“When Only Women Will Work: Gender and Social Change in the Gulf.” Paper Presented to the MTSU Spring 2010 Honors Lectures Series, April 2010.

“Islam’s Influence on the West,” MTSU on the Record (WMOT FM, Murfreesboro, TN), May 10, 2009.

“Israel and Hamas,” Open Line (News Channel 5+, WTVF, Nashville, TN), January 14, 2009.

“Our hand to Islam: 1952 airlift showed statecraft we now lack,” The Tennessean, March 30, 2008.

“The Middle East, Pakistan, and Iran,” Open Line (News Channel 5+, WTVF, Nashville, TN), January 8, 2008.

EDUCATION:

Ph.D. History (Georgetown University), 2005.

M.A. Arab Studies (Georgetown University), 2000.

B.A. (University of California, Berkeley), 1996.