Katharine Halls

Email: katharine.halls@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Website: www.katharinehalls.com

Previous Education

2011, University of Oxford, BA (Hons) Oriental Studies (Arabic and Hebrew), First Class

2013, University of Manchester, MA Translation and Interpreting Studies, Arabic>English, Distinction

2017, American University in Cairo, MA Middle East Studies, GPA 3.93

Thesis Title

Marriage and Gender in the Jewish Communities of Modern Egypt

Supervisors

Dr Moshe Behar, Prof Zahia Smail Salhi

Research Summary

My PhD project examines changing gender politics in the Egyptian Jewish community in the twentieth century, building on MA research I completed at the University of Manchester in 2013, in which I examined the marital anxieties of Karaite Jews in 1940s Cairo. Changing Jewish discourses and practices around gender and marriage during this period reflect Jews’ growing concern over the place of their community within the nation, as well as their deep integration within Egyptian society. This project pays particular attention to the understudied Karaite Jews who flourished in Egypt alongside the larger Rabbanite community, and asks how the question of intermarriage in particular functioned as a boundary marker both between and around the two communities. My sources include public discourses in the Arabic-, French-, and Hebrew-language Jewish press, and internal community debates in various lay and halakhic writings and the records of the Jewish community councils.

Research Interests

Modern Egypt, gender, marriage, Jewish studies, Karaite Jews, Middle Eastern Jews