Senior Fellows

Andi Herawati

Senior Fellow

Dr. Andi received her Ph.D. from the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research traces concepts of imagination (khayāl) through the works of Ibn 'Arabi and explores their resonances within the living traditions of Indonesia. As a member of the Bugis nation, she investigates the intersections of Islamic and indigenous cosmologies, driven by a deep commitment to preserving and developing her ancestral Bugis language and knowledge systems through the close study of its manuscripts. Her recent work uncovers dynamic networks of meaning, focusing on the creative transmission of religious knowledge as expressed in both Bugis manuscripts and the region's ritual landscapes.

Sanaa Alsarghali

Senior Fellow

Dr. Sanaa Alsarghali is the first female obtaining a PhD in Constitutional Law in Palestine. She is the 9th member of the Palestinian drafting committee appointed by the Palestinian National Council in 2019. In July 2020 UNESCO approved the appointment of Dr. Alsarghali as the new holder of UNESCO Chair on Human Rights, Democracy and Peace hosted by An-Najah National University. In 2019 she co-founded the Constitutional Studies Center where she is the director. Sanaa received her PhD from Lancaster University, an LLM in law from Durham University-UK, and a BA in Law from An-Najah National University, Palestine. Alsarghali’s work and publications focus on the Semi-Presidential System’s application in Palestine, and constitution making process. She is a fellow at SEPAD and Richardson Institute for political studies in the UK. Her research with SEPAD is focused on sectarianism issues and constitutional identity in the Middle East. In 2018 Dr. Alsarghali was elected as the Chairwoman of ‘Women, Media and Development’ (TAM), an NGO that intends to change the stereotypical image of the Palestinian women in the Media. Previously, she worked with TAM as a TV presenter through Al Fajer TV local station. Her social and political talk show ‘TAM Time’ was screened on the Palestinian National TV for two years. In December 2018 Sanaa received the Outstanding Alumni Award from Lancaster University. The Alumni Award recognizes Lancaster graduates who have made a substantial contribution in their field and have developed an outstanding national or international reputation amongst their peers. Dr. Alsarghali has been awarded with many prestigious research fellowships and among them is The Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow in Constitutional Law at Melbourne University in 2019. Her book: (States of Exception or Exceptional States Law, Politics and Giorgio Agamben in the Middle East) was published by Bloomsbury London in August 2022, where she is a lead editor and academic contributor in a chapter titled: “A Forced Marriage? Palestine and the State of Exception”.

Ezra Tzfadya

Senior Fellow

Email:

etzfadya@iu.edu

Dr. Ezra Tzfadya is both a  policy, advocacy, and interreligious dialogue practitioner, and an academic expert on modern and medieval Shia Islamic and Jewish political theology. For the last 3+ years, he has lead CSME's program "Shia Islamic and Jewish Legal Reasoning in Dialogue." His current research centers comparatively on the notions of catastrophe, resistance, and exile in Shia Islamic and Jewish exegesis, literature, and cultural memory. He completed his dissertation "Theocracy in Shia Islam and Judaism: Studies in Legal Theology " at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, comparing concepts of religious and political leadership in the two traditions. He is also the translator of Islamic Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Leo Strauss's Relationship with al-Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes. (Albany: SUNY Press, 2024). Ezra comes to CSME following  terms as the Reitman Professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick and as Iran Policy Fellow Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies ( 2021) . In foreign policy, he also  worked as the New York Field Director at J Street  and as the Schonfeld Fellow at the American Jewish Committee's Berlin office, as well as Track 2/1.5 dialogue. For access to his publications see  https://indiana.academia.edu/EzraTzfadya

Amy Horowitz

Dr. Amy Horowitz has three decades of experience in the academy, the music industry, and grassroots arts networks. Her main research interests are Mediterranean Israeli Music, (a form of contemporary popular Israeli music created by Israeli Jews from Islamic countries), the study of cultures in disputed territories, the folklore traditions of contemporary Jerusalem, and protest music as responsible citizenship.

Mary Lee Webeck

Dr. Mary Lee Webeck serves as the Holocaust and Genocide Education Endowed Chair - Celebrating the Life of Survivor Naomi Warren at The Boniuk Center for the Future of Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Studies at Holocaust Museum Houston (HMH). Mary Lee served as the Director of Education at HMH from 2006 – 2020. At HMH, Mary Lee aspires to rid our world of prejudice, hatred and apathy, while inspiring personal responsibility and community engagement. Prior to joining the Museum, Mary Lee served on the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin and Purdue University and taught in public schools.

Negar Partow

Senior Fellow

Dr Negar Partow’s research bridges theory and practice, fostering dialogue among academics, government, and communities. Her expertise in global political issues translates research for diverse audiences. In her publications, Negar offers a unique perspective on religion, politics, and security in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, aiming to indigenise security ideas and practices, resolving conflicts rooted in the relationship between religion and politics. Her research explores how these conflicts affect security in multicultural democracies as well as in authoritarian regimes. Negar has extensive experience in studying ethics and writes on the ethics and politics of security in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. She has extensive research on the role of the United Nations in conflict resolution, and her expertise is sought after through consultations and media appearances in New Zealand, Australia, and North America.

Seyed Amir Asghari

Senior Fellow

Seyed AmirHossein Asghari is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Middle East (CSME) and an Affiliate Researcher at the Center for Possible Minds at Indiana University Bloomington. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University, where his research focused on Islamic intellectual history, Shiʿi theology, and the intersections of philosophy, mysticism (ʿirfān / Sufism), and law in the modern Muslim world. His scholarship spans Islamic philosophy, Shiʿi legal and theological traditions, natural law and its Islamic equivalents (fiṭrah, ḥikmah, ʿaql), and comparative religious thought, with particular attention to how religious traditions conceptualize ethics, authority, and the human self. A central thread of his work explores how Islamic intellectual traditions engage questions of moral knowledge and interreligious understanding in contemporary global contexts. Dr. Asghari is actively involved in interreligious legal and philosophical dialogue, including his contribution to CSME’s ongoing program “Shiʿi Islamic and Jewish Legal Reasoning in Dialogue.” His current research includes projects on Islamic natural law, Shiʿi–Jewish comparative legal reasoning, and interdisciplinary work on the question of mind, bringing Islamic philosophical and spiritual conceptions of cognition, selfhood, and moral discernment into conversation with contemporary debates in cognitive science and the humanities. He has taught at Indiana University and Butler University, offering courses on Islam, the modern Middle East, and comparative religious traditions. His scholarly work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. His recent monograph, Sufism and Philosophy in the Contemporary Shia Seminary (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025), examines debates over philosophy and mysticism within modern Shiʿi seminaries and can be found on the publisher’s website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sufism-and-philosophy-in-the-contemporary-shia-seminary-9780755656622/ More information about his research, publications, and public scholarship is available at https://wisdom-religion.com, where his full curriculum vitae is also accessible.

Steven Alan Carr

Email:

carr@pfw.edu

Website:

http://stevenalancarr.pbworks.com/w/page/30296532/cv

Steven Alan Carr is a film and media historian. He is a 2002-03 Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, a 2010-11 Loewenstein-Wiener Marcus Research Fellow at the American Jewish Archives, and Director of the Purdue University Fort Wayne Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He is the author of  (Cambridge UP, 2001) and many other published essays. His current project examines Hollywood's response to Nazi anti-Semitism and growing public awareness of the Holocaust.

Wesley Thomas

Dr. Wesley Thomas is a Navajo cultural anthropologist. He has years of experience teaching at colleges/universities with a focus on decolonization of curricula at Indigenous higher educational institutions. Usage of local Indigenous language and cultural practices are essential in working on disengaging from colonial-settlers' imperialism, acculturation and assimilation approaches and policies.

Major General (USAF, Ret.) Charles Tucker

Major General (USAF, Ret.) Charles Tucker, serves as Executive Director of two International Non-Governmental Organizations: the Sustainable Capacity International Institute, Arezzo, Italy; and the World Engagement Institute, Chicago, IL, USA.