Cemil Aydin is professor of international/global history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Department of History. He studied at Boğaziçi University, İstanbul University, and the University of Tokyo before receiving his Ph.D. degree at Harvard University in 2002. He was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies (2002-2004), and a Mellon Foundation post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies (2007-2008).
Cemil Aydin’s publications include his book on the Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007) and The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Harvard University Press, Spring 2017). His writings on the political history of the world in the long 19th century was published from Harvard University Press in 2018 as part of an edited volume An Emerging Modern World: 1750–1870 (2018) He currently serves as the co-editor of Columbia University Press book series on International and Global History, and editorial board member of Modern Intellectual History journal.
EDUCATION & DEGREES
Harvard University, Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies, November 2002
• Dissertation: “The Politics of Civilizational Identities: Asia, West and Islam in the Pan-Asianist Thought of Ôkawa Shûmei”
• Dissertation Committee: Cemal Kafadar, Andrew Gordon and Akira Iriye
• General Examination Fields: Ottoman/Turkish History (Cemal Kafadar), Arabic Language and Civilization (William Granara), Japanese History (Andrew Gordon), Modern German History (David Blackbourn)
• M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies, 1997
The University of Tokyo, 1997-1999
• Visiting Research Student and Monbusho Fellow
Istanbul University, M.A. in History of Ottoman Science, July 1995
• Ottoman Intellectual History
• Thesis: “The Crisis of Civilizationism as an Ottoman Reform Ideology: A Study on the Mecmua-i Fünun (1863-1866) and Mecmua-i Ulum (1877-1878) Journals,” Adviser: Professor Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu
Institute of Islamic Thought & Civilization, Malaysia, M. A. coursework, September 1991-June 1992
• Legacy of Early Islamic Theology & Philosophy in the Modern Period
Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, B.A. in Political Science & International Relations, June 1991
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Associate to Full Professor of History, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (January 2012-July 2017)
IIIT Chair in Islamic Studies and Associate Professor of History, George Mason University, Department of History and Art History (August 2009-December 2011)
Founding Director, Ali Vurak Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University (October 2009-December 2011)
Assistant to Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Department of History (August 2004-June 2009)
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Princeton University, Near Eastern Studies Department (September 2007-August 2008)
Academy Scholar, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies (October 2002-December 2003)