Jere L. Bacharach Service Award

This year’s MESA Jere L. Bacharach award is given to Sherene Seikaly, in recognition of her exceptional service to the field of Middle East studies.

 

Professor Seikaly is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) where she also serves as the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies. At UCSB CMES, she has been instrumental to the development of related programs and events, particularly by expanding the graduate student program and related funding. Dr. Seikaly also served as director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo earlier in her career, where she was similarly key to developing the center’s programming.

 

In addition to her leadership of Middle East studies centers, Dr. Seikaly is co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, a co-founder and co-editor of Jadaliyya, and previously served as editor of the Arab Studies Journal. Furthermore, Dr. Seikaly has made significant contributions to building the field of Palestine studies, through the New Directions in Palestine Studies events and as coeditor of the book series of the same name through the University of California Press. She is also a coeditor of the modern Middle East book series at Stanford University Press, and an editorial member of the American Historical Review. Editing can be a particularly thankless form of labor in academia, but Dr. Seikaly is consistently and deeply committed to the behind-the-scenes work of refining and publishing the writing of early career scholars, especially those for whom English is not their first language. Moreover, she has trained and inspired a new generation of editors and writers who continue this ethic of generosity. 

 

Her service to Palestine studies goes beyond publishing and is also exemplified by her stalwart membership on the board of the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), a MESA affiliate. Dr. Seikaly, who continues to develop and present her own cutting-edge research, brings a broad knowledge of the current research of many Palestinian scholars to PARC’s work. Her service to PARC exemplifies how she generously devotes her time to the unglamourous work of organization building and to field building. In addition to PARC, there are numerous networks and initiatives that Dr. Seikaly has participated in, from the Palestinian Feminist Collective to the Political Economy Project and the Black Feminist Think Tank. This is to say nothing of the less visible and more informal networks of advocacy as a principled defender of the rights of scholars and students across the field.

 

This leads, last but not least, to Dr. Seikaly’s numerous contributions to MESA. Professor Seikaly’s service to MESA has been wide-ranging. She has served on MESA Committee on Academic Freedom’s Middle East and North Africa (CAF-MENA) section for many years, and her colleagues admire her dedication, unfailing professionalism, and responsiveness in her work on the committee, as well as the tenaciousness and energy she brings to researching and writing letters in support of our colleagues facing repression and academic freedom violations in the MENA region. Dr. Seikaly served as a Board Member from 2018 to 2020, and previously served on MESA’s nominating committee. Her election to these roles is a testament to her scholarly reputation and the respect of her colleagues in the field. In particular, as a MESA Board member, it should be noted that she played key roles on MESA committees addressing issues of precarity, as well as racism and racial discrimination, in the field of Middle East studies at a critical time.

 

Dr. Seikaly’s remarkable career already exemplifies the kinds of leadership and service to MESA and the profession that this award is intended to honor. While her scholarly achievements are validated with grants, fellowships, awards, and other forms of recognition, she also has an extraordinary record of professional service that is less visible. Professor Seikaly expends enormous energy and time supporting others to achieve their own successes and she creates spaces and institutions for others to thrive. She is a role model of intellectual generosity and a tireless leader in collaborative initiatives that have given rise to new organizations and networks, and to ground-breaking venues for publication across a variety of platforms.

 

This award is therefore enthusiastically given to Dr. Seikaly in recognition of her extensive and devoted service to the field of Middle East studies.