Professor
Email: sscalenghe@loyola.edu
Phone: 410-617-2017
Office: Humanities Center 323
Biography
I am a historian of the social and cultural history of the early modern and modern Middle East, with a particular focus on the Arab world. Much of my scholarship to date has focused on advancing disability history as a field of inquiry both within Middle Eastern studies and in the Global South more broadly.
I earned my B.A. in Arabic and Persian from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and my M.A. in Arab Studies and Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and North African History from Georgetown University. Before joining Loyola University Maryland, I spent two years as an Assistant Professor of History and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University Bloomington. At Loyola, I am also a core faculty member of the Global Studies program.
My publications include articles, book chapters, and three books: Disability in the Ottoman Arab World, 1500-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2014), which received the 2016 Disability History Association Outstanding Book Award; Histories of Disability and Emotion: Reclaiming Pain, Agency, and Intersectionality (Manchester University Press, 2026), co-edited with Ninon Dubourg and Pieter Verstraete; and Disability History in the Modern Middle East (Bloomsbury, in press), co-edited with Beverly Tsacoyianis.
At Loyola, I teach a broad range of courses focusing on disability history and the Middle East. I am also a proud recipient of Loyola’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring.
Courses Taught
- HS 100 Encountering the Past: Introduction to U.S. Disability History
- HS 223 Women and Gender in the Middle East
- HS 226 Introduction to the Modern Middle East
- HS 251 Global Histories of Disability
- HS 300 The Historian's Craft
- HS 368 The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
- HS 396 The Modern Middle East Through Literature and Film
- HS 489 Seminar: America in the Middle East
- HS 499 History Capstone
- GT 201 Introduction to Global Studies
Areas of Specialization
- Middle East and North Africa
- Disability
- Gender