Ethel Sara Wolper is a historian of the medieval and early modern Islamic world. She earned her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Islamic Art from the University of California in Los Angeles. At UNH, Wolper teaches courses on the history of Islam and the Middle East, Sufism, Cities in crisis, Islam in America, and Islamic Art. Wolper has held fellowships from the Fulbright-Hays program, the American Association of University Women, the Center for Advanced Study at the National Gallery of Art, the Mellon Foundation at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University and the National Humanities Center. At UNH, she served as director of the UNH in London program. Wolper is the author of Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia (Penn State University Press, 2003), and an editor with Daphna Ephrat and Paulo Pinto of Saintly Spheres and Islamic Landscapes: Emplacements of Spiritual Power across Time and Space (Brill, 2021) She has published articles in Muqarnas, Mesegios, Muslim World, and Medieval Encounters. She has contributed chapters and entries to The Art Museum (Phaidon, 2010), Women in Islamic Culture, and the Readers Guide to Gay and Lesbian Studies. Wolper's current research focuses on the politics of heritage conservation in destroyed cities of the Islamic world. She is the lead on the remembering Mosul project (<a href="http://www.rememberingmosul.org">www.rememberingmosul.org</a>).
Courses Taught
- HIST 425: Foreign Cultures/Islamic
- HIST 440F: Honors/Islam, Art, & the Past
- HIST 444H: Honors/Beijing to Baghdad
- HIST 500: Intro to Historical Thinking
- HIST 585: Medieval Islam
- HIST 600/800: Explorations/History of Cities
- HIST 797: Colloquium
- HUMA 513A: Global Humanities
- HUMA 514A: Space, Place, & Environment
Research Interests
- Cultural heritage and sustainability
- Heritage & Cultural Conservation
- History of Islam
- History of Islamic art
- History of the Middle East
- Material Culture
- Sociocultural anthropology: heritage
Selected Publications
Wolper, E. S. (2021). Building Activity and Sufi Networks in Anatolia. In SAINTLY SPHERES AND ISLAMIC LANDSCAPES (Vol. 147, pp. 221-247). doi:10.1163/9789004444270_009
Ephrat, D., Wolper, E. S., & Pinto, P. G. (2021). Introduction: History and Anthropology of Sainthood and Space in Islamic Contexts. In SAINTLY SPHERES AND ISLAMIC LANDSCAPES (Vol. 147, pp. 1-31). doi:10.1163/9789004444270_002
Ephrat, D., Wolper, E. S., & Pinto, P. (2020). Saintly Spheres and Islamic Landscapes Emplacements of Spiritual Power Across Time and Place.
Wolper, E. S. (2020). Imaret. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 62-66. Retrieved from http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3
Wolper, E. S. (2017). Shrines of the Hebrew Prophets and the Architecture of Religious Communities in Medieval Iraq. In Synagogues in the Islamic World Architecture, Design and Identity.
Wolper, E. S. (2015). Khidr and the Politics of Translation in Mosul Mar Behnam, St George and Khidr Ilyas. In SACRED PRECINCTS: THE RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE OF NON-MUSLIM COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE ISLAMIC WORLD (Vol. 3, pp. 379-392). doi:10.1163/9789004280229_022
Wolper, E. S. (2014). Islamic Architecture and Institutions in the Late Medieval City. History Compass, 12(12), 912-923. doi:10.1111/hic3.12204
Wolper, E. S. (2013). Khidr and the Politics of Place: Creating Landscapes of Continuity. In Cormack (Ed.), Muslims and Others in Sacred Space. Oxford University Press.
Wolper, E. S. (2013). Khidr and the Language of Conversion: Creating Landscapes of Discontinuity. In Shankland (Ed.), Archaeology, anthropology, and heritage in the Balkans and Anatolia the life and times of F.W. Hasluck, 1878-1920.
Wolper, E. S. (2000). Khidr, Elwan Celebi and the conversion of sacred sanctuaries in Anatolia. MUSLIM WORLD, 90(3-4), 309-322. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2000.tb03693.x
