Department of History

Personal Statement:

I am a writer, editor, and PhD Candidate in History working across the fields of modern Middle East and late Ottoman History, Religious Studies, Archival Studies, and the Latin East (Middle East-Latin American studies). My research examines religious difference, communal institutions, the development of sectarianism, and historical memory in modern Egypt as well as transnationally between El Salvador and Palestine during the 20th Century.

Provisionally titled “Their Own Poor: Communal Identity, Charitable Societies, and the Making of Sectarianism in Modern Egypt 1879-1939” my dissertation examines the formation, development, and popularity of charitable societies in Egypt during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I consider the meteoric rise and proliferation of charitable associations during this period as both a form of cross-confessional solidarity as well as communal boundary-making  at a time when the meaning of sectarianism in Egypt was debated and forged. I argue that charitable societies were central to how religious communities articulated the boundaries of their identity and how they related to ‘others’ within the Egyptian national project during the nationalist movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

My research and language studies have been generously supported by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), Fordham University’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center, the Department of Education’s Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS), the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS), the Yale Center for Race, Indigenous, and Transnational Migration, the American Society for Church History (ASCH), the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the Borchard European Studies Foundation, the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, and the UCSB Center for Middle East Studies. 

In addition to my academic scholarship, I also write reportage, commentary, and creative nonfiction which further explores questions related to my research through personal and investigative essays on race, religion, and politics in and between Egypt, El Salvador, and the United States. This work is published in The Washington Post, Jadaliyya, the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, HAZINE, the Revealer, Sojourners, Contingent Magazine, Rusted Radishes and more. For more information about my research and work, an interview: https://thecchp.com/2020/03/29/interview-with-amy-fallas-philanthropic-solidarities/

Dissertation Title:

“Their Own Poor: Communal Identity, Charitable Societies, and the Making of Sectarianism in Modern Egypt 1879-1939”

Selected Publications:

“On Dead Ends and the Historian’s Craft,” Contingent Magazine 

“El Pueblo de Dios: Latino Evangelicals and Christian Zionism,” The Revealer

“Research under Covid Lockdowns, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Online Resources,” Egypt Migrations.

“How I Met My Mother (and Billy Graham),” The Revealer.

“Some textbooks still parrot Donald Trump’s skewed version of U.S. history,” Sept2020,” The Washington Post.

“American Protestantism’s Commodification of the Middle East’s ‘Holy Lands,’” Sojourners.

“Researching Modern Egypt Online,” Hazine 

“Orthodox Religion and Politics in Contemporary Eastern Europe,” Book Review, Journal for Religion, State and Society, Vol 49, 2020. Orthodox Religion and Politics in Contemporary Eastern Europe

“The Chaldeans: Politics and Identity in Iraq and the American Diaspora by Yasmeen Hanoosh,” Book Review, Arab Studies Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1, Spring 2020. The Chaldeans

“Ramy Kamel, Mada Masr, and Seeing Coptic Issues as Civil Liberties in Egypt,” Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, December 2019.

“What the Taming of Christian Spaces Reveals about Egypt’s Security Complex,” Jadaliyya, November 2019.

“Researching Modern Coptic History: A Guide to the Archives in the US and Egypt,” Archives Review, Coptic Canadian History Project, August 2019.

“El Salvador’s Bukele at Crossroads in Relations with Ancestral Land,” Palestine Square, June 2019

“Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam,” Book Review, Reading Religion, March 2019.

“Assessing Coptic Reform Through the International Christian Student Movement,” Coptic Canadian History Project, October 2018.

“Syria’s Christians Reckon with Survival,” Sojourners, June 2018.

“Targeted Yet Faithful: Egypt’s Copts, Wary of Restrictions, Celebrate Virgin Mary Feast,” Sojourners, October 2017.

“From the Cedars to the Frontlines: Danbury’s Greater Syrian Immigrants and the Great War,” Connecticut History Review Journal, 55 (2) (Fall 2016), 140-152.

“The Armenian-Syrian Relief Fund in World War l-Era Connecticut,” Connecticut Digital Newspaper Project, Fall 2016.

Courses Taught:

Summer 2021: MES 45: Introduction to Middle East Studies

Spring 2021: HIST 46A: Premodern Middle East

Fall 2020: HIST 46B: Modern Middle East

Spring 2020: HIST 4C: Modern Europe

Winter 2020: HIST 46A: Premodern Middle East

Fall 2019: HIST 56 – Introduction to Mexican History

Spring 2019: HIST 56 – Introduction to Mexican History

Awards & Professional Activities:

• Fordham University, Orthodox Christian Studies Center’s Coptic Fellowship 2022-23
• Bemis Dissertation Research Grant, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) 2021-22
• American Society of Church History (ASCH) Research Fellowship for 2021-22
• Steve and Barbara Mendell Graduate Fellowship in Cultural Literacy 2021-22
• American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Dissertation Research Fellowship 2021-22
• Orfalea Center Graduate Fellow, 2020-22
• Borchard European Studies Fellowship, 2020-21
• History Associates Fellowship, Spring 2020
• Center for Middle East Studies, Research Grant, Summer 2019
• Steven Hay Scholarship Award, Spring 2019
• History Associates Fellowship, Spring 2019
• Yale Center for Race, Indigenous, and Transnational Migration Research Fellowship, Cairo, Summer 2017
• Foreign Languages and Area Studies Fellowship Finalist (FLAS) in Arabic at Yale University, Summer 2017
• Critical Languages Scholarship (CLS) in Arabic at Yale University in Oman, Summer 2017
• Oral History Fellowship,Yale University, Fall 2016
• Foreign Languages and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS), Arabic Language Institute in Fez, Morocco, Summer 2016