Copts in Historical and Current Perspectives with Febe Armanios

The Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham is delighted to present the12th episode of its webinar series highlighting the scholarly insights and academic careers of female scholars whose research and writing explore some facet of the history, thought, or culture of Orthodox Christianity.

This episode features an interview with Febe Armanios, Ph.D. Armanios is a history professor at Middlebury College, where she is also co-director of the Axinn Center for the Humanities. She is an internationally recognized expert of Coptic Orthodox and Middle Eastern Christianity, as well as the growing field of food studies. Her research focuses on comparative religious practices between Christians and Muslims, and among Christian communities of the Middle East and Balkans. She has explored everything from the veneration of saints and pilgrimages to diverse food and fasting traditions, comparative gender roles, and (most recently) the ways that Orthodox, Maronite Catholics, and evangelicals use media—particularly television—in the modern Middle East.

The broadcast will be livestreamed and open to all who have pre-registered. The event will include some time for live audience questions. For those who miss the live event, the Center will archive each episode on its website and YouTube channel.

About the Speaker
Armanios is the author of Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2011) and the co-author (with Boğaç Ergene) of the award-winning Halal Food: A History (Oxford University Press, 2018). In the past, she worked as an analyst in Middle East religions and cultures for the U.S. Congressional Research Service, has been invited to testify before Congress on issues related to democracy in the Middle East, and has given lectures at the State Department on the current place of Christians in the region. She has published multiple articles, book chapters, and blog entries, and has also received several awards and fellowships to support her work, including the Fordham Research Fellowship in Coptic Orthodox Studies; the Luce-American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship in Religion, Journalism, and International Affairs; and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.