Dr. Allen James Fromherz is a professor of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2002 and received his PhD in Medieval Islamic History from St. Andrews University in Scotland in 2006. Allen’s first two books, The Almohads: the Rise of an Islamic Empire and Ibn Khaldun, Life and Times examine the rise of empire in medieval North Africa and Iberia. His book The Near West: North Africa and Europe traces the history of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish interactions across the Western Mediterranean, especially in Iberia, Morocco, Tunisia, and Italy. He has been a senior Fulbright grantee to Spain and is completing a book on the life and times of Ibn al-Khatib, a 14th-century polymath and minister who wrote poetry for the Alhambra in Granada.

Allen previously held international fellowships from the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, and a senior humanities grant from NYU Abu Dhabi. He is the co-founder and co-editor of the Edinburgh Book Series on the Maghreb (North Africa). He currently leads study abroad programs for his students at Georgia State, including the popular Marvels of Medieval Spain: The Culture and History of Muslims, Jews, and Christians and a study abroad to Italy. His regular classes on the Middle East, North Africa, medieval Italy and Spain, and the Mediterranean focus on encounters between Muslims, Jews, and Christians.

Language spoken: English