Emeritus Appointment
jkatz@oregonstate.edu

Profile Field Tabs

At OSU
Headquarters: 
OSU Main Campus
Courses Taught: 

HST 385 The Arab-Israeli Conflict

HST 386 Modern Iran: Revolution and its Aftermath

HST 387 Islamic Civilization  (600-1400 A.D.)

HST 388 Islamic Civilization (1400 A.D.-present)

HST 390H Mideast Women: In Their Own Words

HST 485 Politics and Religion in the Modern Middle East

Research/Career Interests: 

With a broad interest in social and religious movements in the Middle East and the Islamic world, Katz routinely teaches Islamic Civilization I and II and Politics and Religion in the Modern Middle East. Katz also teaches the Western Civilization survey and courses on French colonialism and contemporary conflict.

Background

  • Katz majored in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard and later attended Ferdowsi University in Meshed, Iran. As a graduate student at Princeton, Katz's primary fields of training included Iranian history and literature, Sufism (Islamic mysticism) and Islamic political theory. He has since gone on to investigate the role of visions and dreams in Islamic society. His current research concerns French colonialism in North Africa.
  • From 1990-91 Katz was a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. In 2000 he was a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow in Morocco.

Books

Murder in Marrakesh:
Émile Mauchamp and
the French Colonial Adventure

(Indiana University Press, 2006)
Murder in Marrakesh
Dreams, Sufism, & Sainthood Dreams, Sufism and Sainthood:
The Visionary Career of Muhammad al-Zawawi

(Brill Academic Pub, 1996).

Select Publications

  • “Dreams and Their Interpretation in Sufi Thought and Practice,” in Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies, ed. Ozgen Felek and Alexander Knysh (Binghamton: State University of New York Press, 2011).
  • “‘Les Temps Héroïques:’ The Alliance Israélite Universelle in Marrakech on the Eve of the Protectorate,” in Rethinking Jewish Society and Culture in North Africa, ed. Emily Gottreich and Daniel Schroeter (Tucson: American Institute for Maghrib Studies; Indiana University Press, 2011)
  • “Dreams in the Manaqib of a Moroccan Sufi Shaykh: Abd al-Aziz ad-Dabbagh (d. 1719)" in Dreaming Across Boundaries: The Interpretation of Dreams in Islamic Lands, ed. Louise Marlow (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).
  • "The Mauchamp Affair and the French Civilising Mission," The Journal of North African Studies (spring 2001) and reprinted in North Africa, Islam and the Mediterranean World, ed. Julia Clancy-Smith (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2001) 143-68.
  • "An Egyptian Sufi Interprets His Dreams: `Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha`rani," Religion 27 (1997) 7-24.
  • "Shaykh Ahmad's Dream: A 19th-Century Eschatological Vision," Studia Islamica 78 (1994) 157-80.
  • "Visionary Experience, Autobiography, and Sainthood in North African Islam," Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies, 1992 (1) 85-118.
  • "The Worldly Pursuits of a Would-Be Wali: Muhammad al-Zawawi al-Bija'i (d. 882/1477)," Al-Qantara 12 (1991) 497-521.