Dr Feras Hamza
Head of School, Associate Professor
School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Health
+971 4 278 1925
[email protected]
Dr Feras Hamza is the Head of School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Health at UOWD and Associate Professor in International Studies. Dr Hamza obtained his Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Modern Languages (Spanish and Russian) from London University and an MPhil and a DPhil in Oriental Studies from Oxford University (1997-2002).
Trained as a historian, Dr Hamza spent a postdoctoral year as a Research Assistant in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, before returning to London in 2003 to join the Institute of Ismaili Studies, where he remained as a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Graduate Program in Islamic Studies and the Humanities for 5 years. In 2008 he moved to the UAE, to the American University in Dubai, where he contributed substantially to the creation of a Department of Middle Eastern Studies, the accreditation of a Bachelor of International Studies and a Middle Eastern Studies Certificate. He joined UOWD in 2012.
- DPhil, Oxford University
- MPhil, Oxford University
- BA, London University
In the field of International Studies, Dr Hamza’s principal research interests are on citizenship as practice and identity in emerging societies such as that of the UAE. His principal teaching duties are postgraduate classes on Globalisation and Citizenship, Research Methods and Middle East society, as well as the undergraduate Islamic Culture (GEC). His Islamic Studies research centers on Qur’anic ethics inspired by the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur.
Dr Hamza is the member of the Advisory Board of The Qur’an Throughout the Ages, a 6-volume reception history of the Qur’an (with OUP), initially begun by the late Professor Andrew Rippin.
He is currently co-authoring, with Dr Karen Bauer (IIS), a second volume of An Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries: Women in the Qur’an, after the success of the first volume, An Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries: The Nature of the Divine (OUP, 2008). Dr Hamza is General Series Editor for the Institute of Ismaili Studies’ Anthology of Quranic Commentaries Series, published by Oxford University Press, Editor for E.J. Brill’s new series Islamic Literatures: Texts and Studies, and Member of the Advisory Board of The Qur’an Throughout the Ages, a 6-volume reception history of the Qur’an (with OUP), initially begun by the late Professor Andrew Rippin.
- Globalisation and Citizenship
- Research Methods and Middle East society
- Undergraduate Islamic Culture (GEC)

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