Penn State Penn State: College of the Liberal Arts

Middle Eastern Studies

Asaf Levy

/
/
Asaf Levy

Biography

I am a historian of the modern Middle East, focusing primarily on the history of Palestine/Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries. My research follows the social, cultural, economic and political histories of Arabs, Jews and Westerners in Palestine/Israel and seeks to uncover marginalized and untold histories that significantly shaped its societies and the relations between them. My recent work explored the social transformations in Ramallah between 1928-1967 through the prism of leisure, reflecting processes of modernization, Westernization, social stratification, immigration, urbanization and formation of national identities. In my upcoming projects I will explore these themes in other contexts, such as in Jewish-Palestinian relations, intra-Arab and Palestinian society and politics and foreign influence.