The Board of Directors of Middle East Medievalists (MEM) awarded the following graduate students a prize for the best graduate student paper on a medieval topic in the years below.
Winners of the MEM Graduate Student Prize:
2016: Yusen Yu (Heidelberg University), “Chinese Gold-Decorated Paper and the Persianate Book Arts”
2013–15: Not awarded
2012: Majied Robinson (Edinburgh University), “The Concubine in Statistical Context: A Prosopographical Analysis of the Arab Genealogical Tradition” AND Rachel Friedman (University of California, Berkeley), “Religious Longing in the Ghazal of an Andalusi Muslim Convert”
2011: Mushegh Asatryan (Yale University), “Bankers and Politics: 8th Century Kufan Moneychangers and Their Role in the Shi‘a Community”
2008–10: Not awarded
2007: Christine D. Baker (University of Texas, Austin), “Rebellion and the Rise of the Fatimids: The Crafting of Foundational Narratives”
2006: Michael E. Pregill (Columbia University), “Ahab, Bar Kokhba, Muhammad, and the Lying Spirit: Prophetic Discourse before and after the Rise of Islam”
2005: Uriel Simonsohn (Princeton University), “Muslim Intervention or Non-Muslim Appeal: The Question of Communal Demarcation in Medieval Islam”
2004: Behnam Sadeghi (Princeton University), “How Law does not Mirror Values: Two Case Studies in Women in the Public Space”
2003: Elizabeth Alexandrin (McGill University), “Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi’s Mir’ât al-Zamân and the Basâsîrî Débâcle”
2002: Tamer El-Leithy (Princeton University), “Between Assimilation and Resistance: New Evidence on Conversion Practices in Mamluk Society”
2001: Dagmar A. Riedel (Indiana University), “Of God and Sultans: Leadership and Royal Ethics in the Rahat al-Sudur by Rawandi (fl. 1180–1200)”
2000: Deborah G. Tor (Harvard University), “Historical Representations of Ya‘qub ibn al-Layth: A Reappraisal”
1999: Oya Pancaroğlu (Harvard University), “Socializing Medicine: Illustrations of the Kitab al-Diryaq”
1998: Amina A. Elbendary (American University in Cairo), “The Sultan, the Tyrant and the Hero: Changing Medieval Perceptions of al-Zahir Baybars”
1997: Maya Yazigi (UCLA), “Reaching a Viable Truce: Medieval Muslim Women and the Art of Compromise”
1996: Marianne Engle Cameron (University of Chicago), “Sayf at First: A Comparison of Conquest Narratives in Ibn Asakir’s Recension of Sayf b. ‘Umar with al-Tabari’s Recension of Sayf”
1995: Paul M. Cobb (University of Chicago), “Al-Mutawakkil in Damascus, 244/858”