May 4, 2006
Pair of UW professors named 2006 Carnegie Scholars
Two UW professors have been chosen as 2006 Carnegie Scholars. Political Science Professor Ellis Goldberg and School of Law Assistant Professor Clark Lombardi were among 20 U.S. scholars to receive $100,000 grants to pursue research about Islam over the next two years.
He is the author of several books, including Tinker, Tailor and Textile Worker, which deals with the Egyptian labor movement. His most recent book is Trade, Reputation and Child Labor in 20th Century Egypt, from 2004. He also edited a collection of essays in 1996 titled The Social History of Labor in the Middle East. He is also the author of many articles and reviews. Other publications include work on Muslim political movements in Islam, the origins of the post-colonial trade union movement in Egypt, and human rights. He’s now working on a new book on international trade and the political economy of Egypt in the first half of the twentieth century.
“I’m very pleased and honored to have been chosen as a Carnegie Scholar. Given the strength of the UW in Islamic and Middle East studies I expect other UW colleagues will be Carnegie Scholars in the years to come,” Goldberg wrote in an e-mail reacting to this designation. “The money will help me undertake a project I’ve been interested in for a long time but that is considerably different from my previous work in political economy. It’s a turn toward taking contemporary Arab political theory by public intellectuals in the Arab world seriously.”
His research project is titled “Sovereignty, Community and Citizenship in Contemporary Arab Political Thought.”
On a more personal note, Goldberg wrote, “I’m sorry that my mother, who died in December 2005, didn’t live to hear of the award.” His daughter, Sofia Benson-Goldberg, is a freshman this year at the UW.
Lombardi’s Carnegie research project is titled “Muslim Judges as a New Voice in Islamic Discourse,” and will examine the ways in which contemporary judges in the Muslim world have interpreted Islamic law and will explore how their interpretation of Islamic legal texts is informed by civil, common or legal reasoning.
“If we want to understand contemporary developments in the Muslim world, and think about Islam’s relationship to other cultures, it is important to look beyond the narrow group of thinkers who the Western press usually cites as representative,” Lombardi said.
“Legal opinions are important public documents, and some judges have used them to articulate new, sometimes very liberal, ways of thinking about Islamic law. By studying the way judges write about Islamic law and shape public attitudes, I hope to add insight into the ongoing evolution of legal and political thought in the Muslim world. I also hope to clarify the way liberal constitutionalism is understood around the world. This will help us understand the ways in which the non-Muslim world will be able to productively engage with the Muslim world on an ongoing basis.”
Lombardi has worked and studied in numerous countries in the Muslim world, including Indonesia, Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has advised on legal reform and constitutional development in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Affiliated with School of Law’s Asian Law Center, he is active in the center’s Afghan Legal Educator’s Project, which is funded by a grant from U.S. Department of State and is working with Afghan partners to build capacity in legal education in Afghanistan.
The goal of the Carnegie Corporation’s new emphasis on Islam research is to encourage the development and expansion of the study of Islam within the U.S. The 2006 class of Carnegie Scholars reflects a diversity of professional, ethnic and geographical backgrounds. Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote “the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.”
