Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India

Muslims in a Global Context Mini-Course Faculty List

Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India

1) Dr. Muqtedar Khan, Associate Processor, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware

Dr. Muqtedar Khan, PhD (Georgetown University, 2000) joined the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware in 2005. His areas of interest are Politics of the Middle East and South Asia, Political Islam, Islamic Political Thought and American Foreign Policy in the Muslim World. Professor Khan teaches courses on Arab and Middle Eastern Politics, Politics of Development, Globalization, and Islam in World Affairs.

2) Dr. Thomas Barfield, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Boston University

Dr. Thomas Barfield’s current research focuses on problems of political development in Afghanistan, particularly on systems of local governance and dispute resolution. He has also published extensively on contemporary and historic nomadic pastoral societies in Eurasia with a particular emphasis on politics and economy.

Dr. Barfield conducted ethnographic fieldwork in northern Afghanistan in the mid-1970s as well as shorter periods of research in Xinjiang, China, and post-Soviet Uzbekistan. He is author of The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan (1981), The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China (1989), and The Nomadic Alternative (1993), co-author of Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture (1991), and editor of Blackwell’s Dictionary of Anthropology (1997). Barfield received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006 that led to the publication of his newest book, Afghanistan: A Political and Cultural History (2010).

He is also director of Boston University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies & Civilization and currently serves as president of the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies.

3) Dr. Anita Weiss, Professor and Head, Department of International Studies, University of Oregon

Dr. Anita Weiss, PhD (University of California at Berkeley, 1983) teaches courses on International Development, Social Movements, and Gender Analysis, particularly with regards to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and South Asia. Some of her academic interests include Culture and Development in Pakistan, Social Change and Political Transformations in Pakistan, Comparative International Development, Development and Human Rights, Gender and International Development, Muslim Societies and Development, Religion and Social Change, Sociology of South Asia, Women, Legal Reform, and Social Change in the Muslim World.

4) Dr. Nico Slate, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University

Nico Slate’s research and teaching focus on the transnational history of social movements in the United States, with a particular emphasis on South Asia and on the history of struggles against racism and imperialism worldwide. His first book, “Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India” (Harvard University Press, 2012), argues that South Asians and African Americans learned from each other in ways that not only advanced their respective struggles for freedom, but also helped define what freedom could and should mean.

Dr. Slate earned degrees in Earth Systems and the Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities from Stanford University and in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University before completing his Ph.D. in History at Harvard University. He maintains broad interests in the intersection of literature, philosophy, politics, and history, with particular interests in the history of race and caste, diaspora, cosmopolitanism, anti-colonial and post-colonial nationalisms, environmental science and politics, the Second World War, the Cold War, and nonviolent civil disobedience.

5) Dr. Jennifer Murtazashvili, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Jennifer Murtazashvili’s research interests broadly focus on questions of institutional design and state building. Specifically, she explores the relationship between customary and formal state institutions in the state-building process, the political economy of development, sub-national and local governance, as well as electoral design and reconstruction in fragile states.

In addition to her academic experience, she has extensive professional experience working for a wide array of government and development agencies including managing democracy and governance assistance for the USAID mission in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and providing assistance to the newly elected Afghan Parliament for the United Nations Development Program. She also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Murtazashvili holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University as well as a M.A. in Agricultural and Applied Economics and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

6) Dr. Mohammed Najeeb Shafiq, Associate Professor, School of Education and Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Shafiq uses large data and advanced quantitative methods to explore educational topics in developing countries and the U.S. His research interests include the social benefits of education, educational gender gaps, child labor, and school choice. Dr. Shafiq received his Ph.D. in Economics and Education from Columbia University. He previously held appointments at the World Bank, Washington and Lee University, and Indiana University at Bloomington.

7) Colin Clarke, Project Associate, RAND Corporation

Dr. Colin P. Clarke received his Ph.D. in International Security & Foreign Policy from the Graduate School of Public & International Affairs (GSPIA) at the University of Pittsburgh. He currently works as a project associate at the RAND Corporation where his research focuses on insurgency, counterinsurgency (COIN), violent drug trafficking organizations, and security cooperation. From January to April 2011, he worked as part of Combined Joint Interagency Task Force Shafafiyat (CJIATF-S) at International Security Force Assistance (ISAF) Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. Clarke is a co-author of the two volume monograph titled Victory Has a Thousand Fathers: Sources of Success in Counterinsurgency with Christopher Paul and Beth Grill. He is also the author or co-author of several other publications which appear or are forthcoming in Joint Forces Quarterly, Small Wars Journal, Military Operations Research, Journal of Public and International Affairs, and Historical Methods.

8) Carmen Gentile, International Reporter

Carmen Gentile began his international reporting career in the late 1990s when he was based in Cairo, Egypt. He has written for some of the world's leading publications including the New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, USA Today and many others. Carmen has also produced online video reporting for The Times and TIME. He also regularly produces radio reports and has published numerous photos with his work.

Carmen has covered both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, embedding with soldiers on the frontline. His work has also taken him to Nigeria, where he reported on the continuing unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta.