About Claudia


Claudia Gazzini (Singapore, 1977) is an Italian historian who focuses on the Middle East and North Africa in the XIX and XX century. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Max Weber Programme at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Before that, she completed her doctoral studies at the Oriental Institute at Oxford University, where was also a member of St. John's College.

 

Her current research, which often takes her to Tripoli, analyzes the evolution of law and society in Libya during the late Ottoman and colonial period. During her year at the EUI, she plans to continue to work on the registers of the Islamic, Ottoman and colonial courts of Tripoli and turn her thesis into a manuscript. She also plans to introduce anthropometrics and use the median heights of Libyan detainees to measure the differential impact of colonization on the local population’s living standards.

 

Claudia tutored courses on the Politics of the Middle East for various Oxford Colleges and offered an optional paper on Britain in the Middle East for visiting students at the Stanford Programme in Oxford. She is currently organizing a research methods seminar at the Oriental Institute at Oxford.

 

She graduated from Roma III University in Rome and received my M.A. in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University. Originally Italian, but raised in Indonesia, before returning to academia, she worked for Reuters in Indonesia and the Associated Press in Italy and the Middle East.

 

Apart from her academic and personal interest in the Middle East, Claudia also enjoys practising ashtanga yoga, dancing and photography. She also supports the United World Colleges, a very special international education movement, and is in charge of the selection of UWC selection process in Libya.