Dr Elisabeth Kendall

Elisabeth Kendall is Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Pembroke College, Oxford University.  Her current work examines connections between militant jihadist/political movements and cultural production in Arabic.

She spends significant time in the field and is the author or editor of several books, including ReClaiming Islamic Tradition (with Ahmad Khan, in press 2016), Twenty-First Century Jihad (with Ewan Stein, 2015) and Literature, Journalism and the Avant-Garde: Intersection in Egypt (2006, paperback 2010). She also conceived of and edits the “Modern Middle Eastern Vocabularies” series, which includes the titles Security Arabic, Intelligence Arabic and Media Arabic. Previously, she held tenured lectureships or fellowships at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and Harvard. Before returning to Oxford in 2010, she served as Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World, a UK government sponsored initiative aimed at building Arabic language-based research expertise, with a research focus on jihad and martyrdom.

For the last four years, she has acted as international advisor (pro-bono) to a cross-tribal council in eastern Yemen that promotes social and political cohesion as a counterweight to AQAP and Islamic State expansion. In her spare time, Elisabeth sits on a number of national and international Advisory Boards and works on a variety of consultancy and pro bono projects in the Middle East. She is a regular contributor to the international media.