Henry Gorman

Henry Gorman is a PhD candidate.  His research examines the influence of the Ottoman Empire's politics, culture, and society on the development of America's relationship with the Muslim world, and investigates how non-Muslim American actors have mobilized Islam in the service of their own imperial ambitions.  Methodologically, his research synthesizes religious, cultural, and intellectual history with the global histories of capitalism and political empire.  To complete his dissertation, American Ottomans: A New Genealogy of American Empire in the Muslim World, he's done archival research in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Lebanon, using sources in English, French, and Arabic.  In 2017, he received a Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Research grant from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and in 2018, he became a finalist for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation's Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship.  The journal Diplomatic History recently accepted his article, "American Ottomans: Protestant Missionaries in an Islamic State's Service, 1820-1919."  His adviser is Paul Kramer, and his committee also includes Sarah Igo, Leor Halevi, and the University of Pennsylvania's Heather Sharkey.