Cemal Kafadar

Cemal Kafadar (born 15 August 1954) is a Turkish scholar and historian. He is a Professor of History, the Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies in the Department of History, and the director of the Center of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University (CMES). Kafadar graduated from Robert College, then Hamilton College, and received his PhD from the McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies in 1987 and taught for two years in Princeton's Near Eastern Studies department before going to Harvard. Kafadar teaches seminars related to popular culture, hagiography and Ottoman historiography as well as the early modern history of the Middle East and Balkans. He is a member of the editorial board of the Historians of the Ottoman Empire and was a member of the jury of the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival in 2009. He is an honorary member of the Turkish Historical Society.