Richard Harrod

I am a PhD Candidate in the department of history at Washington University in St. Louis. My research focuses broadly on the transnational political and social history of the nineteenth and twentieth-century Middle East and Indian Ocean, with special concentration on the Arab World. Within these larger contours, I concentrate on the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, particularly the regions that are present-day Yemen and Oman.

I have presented my research at the annual meetings 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.

My education and research have been supported by grants and fellowships from Washington University in St. Louis, the WashU history department, the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, and New York University Abu Dhabi. I have studied Arabic at the University of Chicago Summer Language Institute, the Middlebury College Arabic School, and the Sultan Qaboos Institute for the Teaching of Arabic to Non-Native Speakers in Manaḥ, Oman. I also lived for an academic year in Amman, Jordan where I studied advanced Arabic at the Qasid Institute as a fellow with the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (CASA).

I earned a BA in history and classics from Monmouth College (Illinois), an MA in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Chicago, and an AM in history from WashU.

I am a member of the American Historical Association (AHA), the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the Association of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies (AGAPS), and the American Institute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS).

I have been fortunate to travel in areas related to my field of study including Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Pakistan.

I am currently researching and writing my dissertation on the transnational developmental history of Oman from the nineteen sixties through the nineteen eighties. In the spring 2024 semester, I will be offering my own course, a sophomore seminar entitled: “The Indian Ocean World from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day: A Social and Economic History”.