Madonna Aoun Ghazal (PhD 2024) Awarded 2025 Thomas E. Lifka Dissertation Prize

Madonna Ghazal’s dissertation, “Gender, Property, and Kinship in Late Ottoman Beirut,” was awarded the 2025 Thomas E. Lifka Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in the Department of History. Committee members praised the dissertation, which examines the experiences of women in nineteenth-century Beirut as the city was integrated into the world economy and underwent demographic and urban growth. The work offers insight into larger patterns of economic dislocation and urban expansion, as well as the role of gender in these patterns, proving an excellent social and economic history.