On Barak
On Barak earned a Joint Ph.D. in History, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from NYU. He is revising for publication his dissertation, "Egyptian Times: Temporality, Personhood and the Techno-Political Making of Modern Egypt, 1830-1930," which explores the history of communication and transportation in Egypt. Through examining the introduction of new technologies such as the railway and telegraph, the study retraces the development of unique practices of timekeeping, conviviality, and personhood. Barak also holds a Joint B.A. in Law, Arabic Language and Literature from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and an M.A. in Islamic Studies from Leiden University, Netherlands. His work was supported by numerous scholarships and awards, including an NSF dissertation grant and an SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship. Among Barak's publications are several works of prose and poetry; translations of short stories, essays and poetry from both English and Arabic into Hebrew; a study of Islamic chat rooms, "Names without Faces" (2006); and "Scraping the Surface:The Techno-Politics of Modern Streets in Turn-of-Twentieth-Century Alexandria," published in Mediterranean Historical Review (2009). He is currently collaborating with photographer Xenia Nikolskaya on a book project about empty spaces in Cairo. In addition he has served as a news editor, literary critic, and legal correspondent for Israeli newspapers. His teaching at Princeton has included a graduate seminar, Modernity and its Critics in the Middle East, and a seminar on the modern history of Egypt. In the Spring he will teach a seminar titled Energy and Empire, which is also the subject of his new research project.