About

Aomar Boum

Professor
Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies
UCLA Department of Anthropology
UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Director of the Lemelson Undergraduate Honors Program in Anthropology

I am a Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles.

A socio-cultural anthropologist with a historical bent , I am concerned with the social and cultural representation of and political discourse about religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East and North Africa.

My  ethnographic work engages the place of religious and ethnic minorities such as Jews, Baha’is, Shias and Christians in post-independence Middle Eastern and North African states.

My multi-disciplinary background and academic experience are at the intersections of Middle Eastern and North African studies, Islamic studies, Religious studies, African studies and Jewish studies.

While much of my work has focused on the anthropology and history of Jewish-Muslim relations from the 19thcentury to the present, I have also written on different topics such as Moroccan Jewish historiography, Islamic archives and manuscripts, education, music, youth, Holocaust, anti-Semitism, migration, and sports among other subjects.

Contact

Office: 311 Haines
Email: aboum@anthro.ucla.edu
Phone: 310-825-9516