Benjamin Braude

Benjamin Braude is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Boston College. His research focuses on race, collective identities, and religious/ethnic dynamics across Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and has held distinguished visiting positions at institutions like the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute for Advanced Studies.

Education:

• Ph.D., Harvard University

Research interests include Ottoman history, Jewish history, and post-national historiography. His current book project explores the construction of racial attitudes from antiquity to modernity through the lens of the Sons of Noah narratives. Braude’s work bridges medieval and early modern periods, emphasizing comparative approaches to religious and ethnic identity formation.

Publications span topics from Islamic-Jewish-Christian relations to economic histories of Mediterranean trade. His most recent work (2002) examines slavery and race through exegesis in three Abrahamic traditions. Earlier works include co-editing Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire (1982) and analyzing Sephardic economic stereotypes (2001).

Awards and Fellowships:

• Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University (Fellow)
• École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Visiting Professor)

His scholarship engages with transnational and diasporic frameworks, as seen in his comparative study of Armenian and Jewish nationalist movements (1999). Braude’s work often critiques traditional historiographical boundaries, advocating for post-national analytical perspectives.