Jessica Marglin

Jessica Marglin serves as a Visiting Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations for the academic year 2025-2026. Her scholarship centers on the history of Jews in North Africa and the Mediterranean during the modern era, with a specialized focus on legal frameworks and cross-cultural interactions through multilingual archival research.

Her research encompasses several key areas:

• Jewish History
• Legal History
• North African History
• Mediterranean History
• Citizenship Studies
• Moroccan History

Marglin has authored two major monographs that have garnered significant recognition. Her first book, Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco (Yale University Press, 2016), won the Salo Wittmayer Baron Book Prize and a National Jewish Book Award. Her second book, The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean (Princeton University Press, 2022), received the Albert Hourani Book Prize and the J. Willard Hurst Prize for its innovative analysis of transnational legal disputes.

Her scholarly achievements have been honored with the following awards:

• Salo Wittmayer Baron Book Prize (Association for Jewish Studies)
• National Jewish Book Award
• Norris and Carol Hundley Award (Pacific Branch of the AHA)
• Honorable mention for the Peter Gonville Stein Book Award (American Society for Legal History)
• Albert Hourani Book Prize (Middle East Studies Association)
• J. Willard Hurst Prize (Law and Society Association)
• Mediterranean Seminar Book Prize
• Finalist for National Jewish Book Award