Department of History

The History Department is saddened to announce the passing of our colleague, Prof. Hisham B. Sharabi. Dr. Sharabi, Professor Emeritus of History and Umar al-Mukhtar Chair of Arab Culture, passed away on January 13, 2005, at the American University of Beirut Hospital. A specialist in European intellectual history and social thought, Dr. Sharabi was also one of the most influential and prominent Arab intellectuals of the 20th century. He believed the proper role of the Arab intellectual was engagement with the issues facing the contemporary Arab world and was an outspoken and tireless champion of the Palestinian people, the poor, and of women's rights. Among his most well-known works in English are Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford University Press, 1988), a provocative theory about sociopolitical underdevelopment in the Arab world, and his edited volume Theory, Politics and the Arab World: Critical Responses (Routledge, 1990), a book that is used across college campuses in the United States.

Dr. Sharabi was instrumental in increasing awareness of the Arab world in the United States. In the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 and the Arab oil boycott, US relations with the Arab world were shaken and confused. Dr. Sharabi and a small group of Georgetown faculty members and Washington area colleagues, concerned about the evident lack of knowledge and understanding of the Arab world in this country, co-founded Georgetown's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, the only institution in the United States focusing solely on the study of the Arab world.

Dr. Sharabi was also one of the principal founders, in 1977, of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, an organization dedicated to educational, cultural, health and community assistance for Palestinian society and established, in 1991, the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine to represent a Palestinian perspective in Washington, DC. He also served as editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, an English language journal published by the Institute for Palestine Studies.

Hisham Sharabi was born in Jaffa, Palestine, in 1927. He attended the Ramallah Friends School and received his B.A. in Philosophy from American University of Beirut in 1947. He continued his education in the United States, earning from the University of Chicago an M.A. in Philosophy in 1949 and a Ph.D. in the History of Culture in 1953. Within the year, he began teaching at Georgetown University and earned a full professorship in 11 years. In 1977 Georgetown University awarded Dr. Sharabi the Umar Al-Mukhtar Chair in Arab Culture in recognition of his distinguished intellectual contributions and his efforts to promote Arab studies. In honor of his work in both the European and Arab fields, the Department convened an international two-day symposium in 2002 titled "The Role of the Intellectual in Contemporary Political Life." Also named in his honor is the annual Hisham Sharabi Graduate Essay Competition, begun by the Department's graduate students upon Dr. Sharabi's retirement in 1998.