Rudi Matthee

Rudolph (Rudi) Matthee teaches Middle Eastern history, with a research focus on early modern Iran and the Persian Gulf. He received his Ph.D. in 1991 from the University of California, Los Angeles. He wrote The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730 (Cambridge University Press, 1999); and The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900 (Princeton University Press, 2005). He co-edited, with Beth Baron, Iran and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Nikki R. Keddie (2000); and co-edited, with Nikki Keddie, Iran and the Surrounding World, 1501-2001: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics (2002). He published numerous articles on aspects of Safavid and Qajar Iran. Professor Matthee is the President of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies, 2003-2005.

Beth Baron

Beth Baron is Professor of History at the City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (University of California Press, 2005) and The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (Yale University Press, 1994), which was translated into Arabic by the Supreme Council of Culture in Egypt. She co-edited Iran and Beyond: Essays in Middle Eastern History (Mazda, 2000) with Rudi Matthee and Women in Middle Eastern History (Yale University Press, 1991) with Nikki Keddie. Baron has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She is a founding co-director of the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center (MEMEAC) at the CUNY Graduate Center, which was recently awarded a Department of Education Title VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages grant. Baron is currently writing a book on orphans and abandoned children in Egypt.