Richard Harrod

I am a PhD Candidate in the department of history here at Washington University in St. Louis. My research focuses broadly on the transnational history of the nineteenth and twentieth-century Middle East and Indian Ocean world, with special concentration on the Arab World. Within these larger contours, I focus on the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, particularly the regions that are present-day Yemen and Oman. I work under the supervision of Dr. Nancy Y. Reynolds. I completed minor fields for my degree in African and modern South Asian history under the supervision of Dr. Tim Parsons and Dr. Cassie Adcock respectively.

I have presented my research at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and The Middle East History and Theory Conference at the University of Chicago, among other venues.

Prior to starting my time here at WashU, I earned a BA in history and classics from Monmouth College (Illinois) and a MA in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Chicago where I wrote a master’s thesis on the Arab world’s appraisals of and responses to the rebellion of Muḥammad Aḥmad al-Mahdī in late-19th century Sudan.

I have received scholarships, grants, and fellowships from Washington University in St. Louis, the WashU history department, and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center among others. I have studied Arabic at the University of Chicago Summer Language Institute, the Middlebury College Arabic School, and the Sultan Qaboos College for the Teaching of Arabic to Non-Native Speakers in Manaḥ, Oman.

I am currently preparing the research for my dissertation which will focus on the transnational developmental history of Oman during the reign of Sultan Qaboos (1970 – 2020).

For the academic year of 2022-2023, I will be a Fellow with the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) at the Qasid Institute in Amman, Jordan, where I will study advanced Arabic.