Denise A. Spellberg
Professor — Ph.D., 1989, Columbia University
Contact
- E-mail: spellberg@austin.utexas.edu
- Phone: 512-475-7202
- Office: GAR 3.208
- Campus Mail Code: B7000
Biography
Research Interests
My research in intellectual, religious, and gender history focuses on the medieval Islamic world, from Iran to North Africa, and also on Islam and Muslims in early modern and contemporary Europe and the United States. Although my home department at UT is History, I am affiliated with our Programs in Middle Eastern and Religious Studies. My work is interdisciplinary and comparative, supporting a global approach to Islamic Studies, rather than an area-specific one.
Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders (Knopf, 2013) has been translated into Indonesian, Turkish, and Arabic.
I have also written, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha bint Abi Bakr (Columbia, 1994).
Courses Taught
I teach the first half of the introductory, required course sequence for Middle Eastern Studies undergraduate majors, “Introduction to the Middle East, Religious, Cultural, Historical Foundations, 570-1453” cross-listed with History and Religious Studies. Other courses taught include an upper-division lecture on Islamic Spain and North Africa to 1492 and the undergraduate seminar Islam in the History of the U.S. As History Honors Director, I also teach the junior historiography seminar for our junior Honors students. Graduate courses taught include those focused on Islamic historiography, Islam in Europe and America, as well as Islam, narrative, and slavery.
Awards/Honors
Carnegie Foundation Scholarship (2009-10) awarded in support of my research on Islam and the Founders. Foreign Research Lectureship, École des Hautes Études (EHESS), Centre de Recherches Historiques, Paris, France, (January 2004); National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1992-93).
Grand Prize winner of the 2014 University Co-op Robert W. Hamilton Book Award for Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an, chosen by an interdisciplinary committee of faculty from among the 51 books published at UT Austin from all colleges and fields in the year 2013. “The Hamilton Awards are among the highest honors of literary achievement given for UT Austin authors.” October 15, 2014.
Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards, Nonfiction Finalist 2013/2014, September 30, 2014.
I-CAIR Faith in Freedom Award from the Council American-Islamic Relations, Cleveland, Ohio Chapter, “For promoting a better understanding of the history of religious freedom in America and for writing Muslims back into our nation’s founding narrative through the extraordinary and illuminating scholarly work, Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders,” May 11, 2014.
Dost (“Friend”) Book Prize awarded by the Turkish Women’s Cultural Association, Istanbul, for Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past (1994), for “universal contribution to Islamic Studies,” January 2009.
I have been nominated for 7 teaching awards (1991-2013) at UT and won three others: The Harry Ransom Teaching Award (2006), the Dad’s Centennial Teaching Fellowship (2003), and the President’s Associates Teaching Award for Excellence in History (1996-97).