Kristen Alff works as an Assistant Professor of History and International Studies at North Carolina State University. She previously held the positions of Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia and Lecturer at Stanford University. Kristen Alff earned her first MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University in Cairo. She earned her PhD from Stanford University in Modern Middle East History in 2019. Alff’s current book project argues that Beirut-based, joint-stock companies shaped the character of global capitalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Kristen’s second book will trace the process by which local real estate companies acquired land in late Ottoman Palestine. It argues for peasant-driven changes in local agricultural technologies prior to Jewish land purchase and immigration. Alff’s third book will trace the popularity of “Judea bitumen” used in asphalt, photography, and shoe leather, Alff’s previous research was on Kurdish nationalism and minority identities in Mandate Iraq.
Kristen’s work has been published in leading journals such as Comparative Studies in Society and History and Enterprise and Society. Her work can also be found in the recent volume Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa and the International Journal for Middle East Studies. Kristen has also published in public forums such as The Conversation and The Economic Historian. Alff’s research is based on over 18 years of primary and secondary source reading in English, French, German, Hebrew, Ottoman Turkish, Turkish, and Arabic.
Kristen has spent the majority of her adult life living in Germany, Japan, and Egypt. When she is not teaching or writing, she enjoys running. Kristen Alff was 2009 women’s winner of the Egyptian national marathon, and now enjoys cross-training and weightlifting.
CV (2024) HERE