Professor of History; Director, Centre for Digital Humanities
Professor Sarah Bowen Savant is a cultural historian specialising in the Middle East and Iran ca. 600-1100. She also serves as founding Director of the AKU-ISMC's new Centre for Digital Humanities. She received her MA from the University of Chicago and her PhD from Harvard University. Prior to joining AKU-ISMC in 2007, she was a Sultan Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), which won the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award, given by the International Society for Iranian Studies on behalf of the Persian Heritage Foundation. Her other publications include The Excellence of the Arabs: A Translation of Ibn Qutaybah’s Faḍl al-ʿArab wa l-tanbīh ʿalā ʿulūmihā (with Peter Webb; The Library of Arabic Literature; Abu Dhabi: New York University Press, 2016), as well as articles and edited volumes dealing with ethnic identity, cultural memory, genealogy, history writing, book history, and digital humanities. Her current book project focuses on the history of books in the Middle East. With a team, she is developing digital methods to study the origins and development of the Arabic and Persian textual traditions. She and her team have have received funding from the European Research Council, the Qatar National Library, the British Academy, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the AKU-ISMC. Please see kitab-project.org.
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About Sarah Bowen Savant
Professor Sarah Bowen Savant is a cultural historian specialising in the Middle East and Iran ca. 600-1100. She also serves as founding Director of the AKU-ISMC's new Centre for Digital Humanities. She received her MA from the University of Chicago and her PhD from Harvard University. Prior to joining AKU-ISMC in 2007, she was a Sultan Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), which won the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award, given by the International Society for Iranian Studies on behalf of the Persian Heritage Foundation. Her other publications include The Excellence of the Arabs: A Translation of Ibn Qutaybah’s Faḍl al-ʿArab wa l-tanbīh ʿalā ʿulūmihā (with Peter Webb; The Library of Arabic Literature; Abu Dhabi: New York University Press, 2016), as well as articles and edited volumes dealing with ethnic identity, cultural memory, genealogy, history writing, book history, and digital humanities. Her current book project focuses on the history of books in the Middle East. With a team, she is developing digital methods to study the origins and development of the Arabic and Persian textual traditions. She and her team have have received funding from the European Research Council, the Qatar National Library, the British Academy, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the AKU-ISMC. Please see kitab-project.org.
| Present | Professor, Aga Khan University ‐ Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations | |
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Disciplines
Research Interests
Grants
| 2019 - Present | The Open Islamicate Texts Initiative Arabic-script OCR Catalyst Project (OpenITI AOCP) |
| The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation | |
| Role: Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Colleague(s): Matthew Miller, Maxim Romanov, David Smith, Raffaele Viglianti | |
| $800,000 | |
| 2018 - Present | Knowledge, Information Technology and the Arabic Book |
| European Research Council - 772989 | |
| Consolidator Grant | |
| Role: Principal Investigator | |
| $2,776,643 | |
| 2018 - 2020 | Digital Sira Project, phase 1 |
| Qatar National Library | |
| Role: Principal Investigator | |
| Colleague(s): Abdul Rahman Azzam, Kevin Jaques, Mathew Barber, Masoumeh Seydi, Ryan Muther, David Smith, Maxim Romanov | |
| 2016 - 2017 | Mid-Career Fellowship |
| British Academy | |
| $77,326 | |
| 2014 | Rising Star Engagement Award |
| British Academy | |
| $25,127.64 |
Professional Service and Affiliations
| 2019 - Present | Member, Senior Management Team, The Aga Khan University-ISMC | 2015 - 2019 | President, Middle East Medievalists |
Honors and Awards
- Foundation for Iranian Studies 2006 Dissertation Prize
- Saidi-Sirjani Book Award (2013)
Courses
- The Sira
- The Islamicate World 2.0: Studying Islamic Cultures through Computational Textual Analysis
- Introduction to Muslim History
- History of the Qur'an
| September 1998 - May 2006 | PhD, Harvard University ‐ Graduate School of Arts and Sciences | |
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| 1996 - 1998 | MA, University of Chicago ‐ Divinity School | |
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| 1989 - 1993 | BSFS, Georgetown University ‐ Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service | |
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