Expertise

Middle East history and politics; nationalism; colonialism; border studies; memory studies

At the Keough School

Asher Kaufman, professor of history and peace studies, is the John M. Regan, Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

Courses

• Memory, History and Violence (elective for undergraduate program in peace studies)
• Dissertation Writers Seminar (for PhD program in peace studies)
• Research and Dissertation (for PhD program in peace studies)

Research and Publications

Kaufman’s region of expertise is the modern Middle East with a particular focus on Lebanon, Israel, and Syria. His research interests include the history and legacy of nationalism and colonialism in the Middle East, border conflicts and dynamics, and the interplay between memory, history, and violence.

Kaufman’s current project examines the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the consequent eighteen-year occupation of South Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. In this project he studies questions of memory, forgetfulness, and silence within Israeli, Lebanese and Palestinian societies. He also explores border dynamics between Lebanon and Israel and investigates Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon, comparing it with the country’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Kaufman is the author of Contested Frontiers: Cartography, Sovereignty, and Conflict at the Syria, Lebanon, Israel Tri-Border Region (Woodrow Wilson Center, with Johns Hopkins). He also is the author of Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon (I.B. Tauris), a history of modern Lebanese national identity.

Among Kaufman’s recent publications are “Belonging and Continuity: Israeli Druze and Lebanon, 1982-2000,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 48 (2016), 1–20; “Thinking Beyond Direct Violence,” International Journal of Middle East Studies (May 2014), pp. 441-444; “Colonial Cartography and the Making of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria,” in Cyrus Schayegh and Andrew Arsan (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the History of Middle East Mandates (London: Routledge, 2015). “Between Permeable and Sealed Borders: The Trans-Arabian Pipeline and the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” International Journal of Middle East Studies (February 2014), pp. 95-116; Forgetting the Lebanon War? On Silence, Denial and Selective Remembrance of the ‘First’ Lebanon War,” in Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century, edited by Efrat Ben Ze’ev, Ruth Ginio and Jay Winter (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Kaufman holds a PhD from Brandeis University.

In the Media

• Why both Israel and Hezbollah are eager to avoid tit-for-tat attacks escalating into full-blown war (The Conversation)
• Hezbollah’s reaction to the Israel-Hamas war could finally answer whether the group cares more about Lebanon or being a proxy for Iran (Forbes)
• Iran sends deadly message to Biden with Hamas attack on Israel (The Hill)
• Forty Years of the Israel-Lebanon Agreement and the Fantasy of Renewing the Hiram-Solomon Alliance (Haaretz – in Hebrew)
• What to know about the Israel-Lebanon maritime border deal (Al Jazeera)
• Leaked text of Lebanon-Israel maritime deal underscores its ambiguity (The Times of Israel)