Gregory Starrett

Gregory Starrett (B.A. Northwestern University 1983, Ph.D. Stanford University 1991) has taught Anthropology at UNC Charlotte since 1992. He has talked about his research on the cultural politics of Islam in the Middle East to audiences at numerous churches and community groups in Charlotte, as well as to the State Department, the Library of Congress, and major universities in the US, Canada, Israel, Germany, and the UK. His 1998 book Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics and Religious Transformation in Egypt (California 1998), examines religious education and its connection to state politics and popular Islamic movements.  He also co-edited Teaching Islam:  Religion and Textbooks in the Middle East (Lynne Reinner 2007), with Eleanor Doumato of Brown University. Responding to concerns that Islamic education is responsible for anti-American sentiment, this volume critically analyzes the religion curricula of nine countries, demonstrating how scholarship can illuminate contemporary international issues. Professor Starrett has conducted research on secularism, religious commodities, and public culture in Egypt; on African-American Muslim communities; on Islamophobia and ritual in multicultural education in the US; on the folklore of bioterrorism and suicide bombing; and most recently on the return of right-wing movements to political prominence in Western democracies. He has served as President of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association (2009-2010), Editor of the Middle East Studies Association’s journal, the Review of Middle East Studies (2007-2012), and is on the editorial board of the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History. In 2011 he was a finalist for UNC Charlotte’s Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence, and during the 2014-2015 academic year he served as the President of the UNC Charlotte Faculty. From 2016-2022 he led UNC Charlotte’s successful effort to obtain a charter for a chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.