About the Founding Director: Dr Makram Khoury-Machool
The Cambridge Centre for Palestine Studies under the leadership of its British-Palestinian Founding Director, Dr Makram Khoury-Machool, aspires to add another layer of success to the many pioneering research centres in Cambridge across the centuries. Cambridge University, being one of the leading educational institutions in the world, has seen world-leading, award-winning, research centres in science as well as in the arts and humanities guided by many Noble Prize winners in their fields.
Today, though Cambridge is home to various research centres specialising in manifold languages, cultures and sciences, a Cambridge Centre for Palestine Studies will be the first of its kind to consider not only the current reality of Palestine, but also the history, religion, literature, music, arts and the natural landscape of Palestine, as a focal point for research that has global significance.
As Palestine’s overlapping and interwoven mosaic goes beyond archaeology or any one particular discipline, Dr Makram’s vision and varied intellectual and cross-cultural literacy, aims to bring the study of historic and contemporary Palestine to bear on the different disciplines in the academy and revive the manifold forgotten textures and layers of the study of Palestine today.
Prof Stefan Sperl named as our first Academic Director
Stefan Sperl has been named as the first Academic Director of the Cambridge Centre for Palestine Studies. After spending ten years working for UNHCR in Egypt, Sudan and Geneva he joined SOAS in 1988 where he taught courses in Arabic literature and Refugee Studies. In his capacity as Head of the Near and Middle East Department, he arranged for SOAS BA Arabic students to spend their year abroad at Al-Najah University in Nablus, Occupied West Bank. He retired in 2018 as Emeritus Professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies and continues to be engaged in lecturing and research. From 2023 to 2025 Prof. Sperl taught courses on classical Arabic Literature at the University of Cambridge. Recent publications include Faces of the Infinite, Neoplatonism and Poetry at the Confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe with accompanying website lyrics-of-ascent.net (with Y. Dedes, 2022). He will take on an expanded role in the Centre’s academic development and strategic planning. Click here for more details.
CAMBRIDGE CENTRE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES
Guided by academics and assisted by practitioners, CCPS is a multi and inter-disciplinary research and teaching centre structured along a wide variety of academic clusters to create a nurturing space to serve students and scholars interested in Palestine Studies and facilitate knowledge transfer, cross-disciplinary collaboration and international research partnerships.
LATEST NEWS
Welcome to our first Academic Director
Professor Stefan Sperl has joined the board as the first Academic Director of the CCPS – PRESS RELEASE
CCPS Forthcoming Launch
For the last two years, we hoped to hold a face-to-face launch for the Centre. Yet, we were unable to with the Brexit process followed by the Coronavirus. For the moment, the global pandemic has altered the rules we have for holding academic events. Nonetheless, the launch will be taking place in due course.
