91ºÚÁÏ

Robert Morrison, George Lincoln Skolfield, Jr. Professor of Religion and Middle Eastern and North African Studies, Director of Middle Eastern and North African Studies Program

In my research, I study things that are often thought to be separate, such as religion and science, Judaism and Islam, Europe and the Middle East, and the pre-modern and the modern. For example, I have written about Jewish scholars who moved between Italy and the Ottoman Empire and taught their Christian and Muslim patrons. Their teaching bridged astronomy and Bible commentary, Qabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and mechanics. Their activities between 1450 and 1500 paved the way for Nicholas Copernicus, the first to theorize a sun-centered arrangement of the planets, a foundation of modern science.

We learn that major events such as the Renaissance were contingent in that they depended on the decisions of individuals; nothing was fated to happen. I find too that there is a difference between the Middle East and Europe, but that the difference was more of a gradient; there was no sharp dichotomy. Finally, we discover that scholars who had a lower social status than that of their patrons nevertheless exerted a remarkable degree of influence.

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Samia Rahimtoola, Assistant Professor of English

Can poetry save the world, or at least provide a blueprint for doing so? My research interrogates how politics and technologies of the Cold War shaped the course of modern environmentalism and reveals that poetry was important for contesting and envisioning a more just and equitable environmentalism.

Tracing modern environmentalism back to its Cold War origins helps us see the way it provided a new avenue for Western imperial powers to maintain their grip on the human and nonhuman ‘resources’ of a decolonizing planet. Understanding Cold War environmentalism as one of the many strategies through which the West sought to preserve their global dominance also helps us understand why so many writers and intellectuals were dissatisfied with the paradigms and solutions it offered.

Many ecologically attuned writers and intellectuals of the Cold War moment resist attitudes and politics we would associate with environmentalism today. They are for the protection of nature, but anti-state regulation; they are alert to the social and ecological crises that rive the planet, but bristle at schemes for human stewardship; they are voracious readers of science, but they are often skeptical of scientism’s technical solutions. My book Poetry from Spaceship Earth: Empire and Ecology in Post-1945 American Poetry makes sense of these positions as part of an emerging decolonial environmental politics that positioned itself as an alternative to Cold War environmentalism.

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Ezgi Yildiz, Assistant Professor of Government

I study how international institutions shape and are shaped by laws that govern some of the most pressing issues of our time, from human rights to ocean governance to the ethics of emerging technologies. At its core, my work is policy-oriented: I study how laws are made, contested, and reimagined by governments, courts, and activists. For example, my first book, Between Forbearance and Audacity: The European Court of Human Rights and the Norm Against Torture, explains how court-curbing, pressure, and backlash from governments have compelled the European Court to dial back refugee protection. I am also interested in moments when international law stretches and changes to meet new global challenges through informal means, which I investigate in my forthcoming book, Change in International Law: Paths, Processes, Power.

Beyond 91ºÚÁÏ, my research connects directly to practice. I have contributed to European Union initiatives to ban inherently abusive riot control and law enforcement equipment and have advised organizations, such as UNICEF, on strengthening international accountability. These experiences remind me that law is a living system, and that scholars, students, and policymakers all have a role in making it more just and responsive. At 91ºÚÁÏ, I hope to bring these worlds together by engaging students in the study of institutions not as abstractions but as dynamic arenas where global norms, politics, and moral choices meet.

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