Academic Bio
Pelle Valentin Olsen joined NELC as a PhD student in 2014. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Copenhagen. He studied Arabic in Syria and Lebanon. Working on Iraqi cultural history, Pelle’s work examines the history of leisure, education, gender, and sexuality in Hashemite Iraq. In addition to book reviews, he has published in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. He regularly presents at conferences in Europe and North America. In 2016-17 he taught Arabic as a lecturer at the University of Chicago. His research has been supported by the Fulbright Commission, The Nicholson Center for British Studies, The Center Jewish Studies, The Danish Institute in Damascus, The Danish Institute in Rome, St. Antony’s College Oxford, The UChicago Urban Doctoral Fellowship, and The German Orient Institut in Beirut, among others. In 2018, Pelle was awarded a two-year Hanna Holborn Gray Advanced Fellowship