Education

• Ph.D., History, Princeton University
• M.A., History, Princeton University
• M.A., Near Eastern Studies, New York University
• B.A., Psychology, American University in Cairo

About

Omnia El Shakry specializes in the intellectual and cultural history of the modern Middle East, with a particular emphasis on the history of the human and religious sciences in modern Egypt. El Shakry is a founding member of the Middle East/ South Asia Studies Program and is affiliated with the Critical Theory and Cultural Studies Programs on campus.

Research Focus

Omnia El Shakry is the author of The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2017), which traces the development of psychoanalysis and discourses of subjectivity in postwar Egypt as part of the transregional history of ideas of the self and the unconscious. You can listen to podcasts on the book here and here. Most recently, she edited Understanding and Teaching the Modern Middle East as part of the Harvey Goldberg Series for Understanding and Teaching History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020). She is currently working on two book projects. The first centers on the oeuvre of Sami-Ali, the Arabic translator of Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, author of a large body of original psychoanalytic writings, and translator of the poetry of Sufi masters. The second is on the vibrant intellectual and religious exchange between Muslim and Catholic scholars in twentieth century Egypt.

Publications

• El Shakry, O. (2021) “Rethinking Arab Intellectual History: Epistemology, Historicism, Secularism.” Modern Intellectual History 18, no. 2: 547–572.

• El Shakry, O. (Ed.) (2020) Understanding and Teaching the Modern Middle East. University of Wisconsin Press.

• El Shakry, O. (2018) “Psychoanalysis and the Imaginary: Translating Freud in Postcolonial Egypt.” Psychoanalysis and History 20, no. 3: 313–335.

• El Shakry, O., Pursley, S. & McKusick, C. (Eds.) (2018) Psychoanalysis and the Middle East: Discourses and Encounters. Special Issue of Psychoanalysis and History 20, no.3.

• El Shakry, O. (2017) The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt. Princeton University Press.

• El Shakry, O. (Ed.) (2016) Gender and Sexuality in Islam: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies. Volume I: Gender and the Ethical Subject; Volume II: Gender, Empire, and Nation; Volume III: Sexualities, Intimacy, and the Body; Volume IV: Gender, Sexuality, and Representation. London and New York: Routledge Press.
• El Shakry, O. (2015) "'History without Documents': The Vexed Archives of Decolonization in the Middle East." The American Historical Review 120, no. 3: 920-934.
• El Shakry, O. (2014) "The Arabic Freud: The Unconscious and the Modern Subject." Modern Intellectual History 11, no. 1: 89-118.
• El Shakry, O. (2011) "Youth as Peril and Promise: The Emergence of Adolescent Psychology in Postwar Egypt." International Journal of Middle East Studies 43, no. 4: 591-610.
• El Shakry, O. (2007) The Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt. Stanford University Press.

Teaching

The World Since 1850 (HIS 10C); Colonialism and the Making of the Modern World (HIS 110A); The Middle East in the 20th Century (HIS 193B); Colonialism and its Discontents (HIS 102X); Gender and Sexuality in the Modern Middle East (HIS 102R); World History: Approaches and Methods (HIS 201X); Postcolonial Histories and Theories (HIS 201W); Modern Middle East History: Problems and Methods (HIS 201M); Methods of Cultural Studies (CST 200C); Psychoanalysis as Theory and Practice (CRI 200B); Approaches to Critical Theory (CRI 200A).

Awards

• Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award, American Historical Association, 2020
• Stanford Humanities Center, Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow, 2018–2019
• Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Scholar Mentoring Award, UCD Graduate Studies, 2017
• National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institute Director, 2013
• ACLS Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship, 2008–2009
• Fulbright Scholar, Cairo, Egypt, 2004–2005
• University of California, President’s Research Fellowship, 2004–2005