Razan Idris

I am available to deliver lectures to your K-12 classroom at no charge. All requests MUST be booked through the Middle East Center Speaker's Bureau. My topics of expertise include modern African and Middle Eastern history, race in the Middle East, and race in diasporic Afro-Arab communities in the United States.

My general research is on meanings of blackness in Arabic-speaking contexts on the African continent and its diasporas abroad, through the lens of my broader interest in race and critical history. For my thesis I plan to explore blackness through the eyes of male students at al-Azhar in Egypt from the early Khedival period until today, using diverse legal texts, visual sources, and interviews. This is informed by my past studies, where I have investigated "Afro Arab" identity through gendered legal doctrines (namely al-kafa'a fil nasab), commented on Sudanese and African American exchanges in the 20th century, and enjoyed writing about anime in the Arabic-speaking diaspora.

I am the curator of the #SudanSyllabus open project, focusing on Sudanese social, cultural, and intellectual history. You can also find me at my page in the History department at Penn.