Ethel Wolper

Ethel Wolper

Associate Professor
Phone: (603) 862-3884
Office: Horton Social Science Center, Durham, NH 03824
Websites:
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 (www.rememberingmosul.org).

Courses Taught

  • ARTH 697: Topics in Asian Art
  • HIST 425: Foreign Cultures/Islamic
  • HIST 440F: Honors/Islam, Art, & the Past
  • HIST 444H: Honors/Beijing to Baghdad
  • HIST 585: Medieval Islam
  • HIST 600/800: Explorations/History of Cities
  • HIST 797: Colloquium
  • HIST 797/897: Colloquium
  • HUMA 514A: Space, Place, & Environment

Education

  • Ph.D., Art History,Criticism&Conserv., University of California - Los Angeles
  • M.A., Art History,Criticism&Conserv., University of Chicago
  • B.A., PublicRelationsAdvertAppldComm, University of Chicago

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. (2025). Agency and Invisibility in the Islamic city. In J. C. Moreno Garcia (Ed.), Community and Representation (pp. 253-257). Oxbow.

  • Wolper, E. S. (2024). Prophet Shrines and Religious Communities in Mosul. In Constructing and Contesting Holy Places in Medieval Islam and Beyond (pp. 321-347). BRILL. doi:10.1163/9789004525320_013

  • 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

  • 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. (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. (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. (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

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  • Most Cited Publications