Jamal J. Elias

Bio

I am Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and the Director of the Wolf Humanities Center at the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Director of the Penn Forum for Global Islamic Studies. I am a historian of Islamic thought, literature and visual culture with a particular focus on Western and Southern Asia (from Turkey to Pakistan).

I am the author or editor of seven books (two more as a co-author) and of over fifty articles in scholarly journals, encyclopedias and popular media. My most recent book, After Rumi: The Mevlevis and Their World, is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. My writings have been translated into at least nine languages.

I am the recipient of many grants and awards, including from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Templeton Religion Trust, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the American Institute for Pakistan Studies, and the Middle East Studies Association. I have served on the boards of several international academic and artistic organizations, including as Special Advisor to the Provost of Aga Khan University focusing on the development of the School of Arts and Sciences in Karachi and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London.

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I received my PhD from Yale University and undergraduate degree from Stanford University. I have also studied in France and Turkey.

In addition to my academic work, I am an award-winning photographer whose work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the United States of America, Canada, and Australia. In my limited free time, I play the flamenco guitar which I have studied in Spain over the years.​

Jason Varney Photography