Shauna Huffaker

Assistant Professor, History
Graduate Faculty

Ph.D. University of California Santa Barbara, 2008
M.A. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1995
B.A. Boise State University, 1994

2188 Chrysler Hall North
University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4
tel. 519-253-3000 ext. 2320

huffaker@uwindsor.ca

Research & Teaching Interests

The medieval and early modern Middle East, urban history, gender history, history of material culture, Islamic law and society

Current Projects

I am preparing my dissertation for publication as a monograph. My dissertation was a microhistory of a neighborhood in Cairo, al-Darb al-Ahmar, from 1450-1600. Research on a single neighborhood revealed new insights into women’s roles as property owners, the interactions of Christians and Muslims at the local level, domestic architecture, and the structure of the city in terms of gates, neighborhoods and streets.

I have also begun to research the transition from a Mamluk court system to an Ottoman court system in early modern Egypt. Initially I will be writing a history of the notaries of the court of Ibn Tulun in southern Cairo. Eventually this project will include histories of other courts including the city of Dumyat on the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Nile delta. This project will investigate the ways in which a local Egyptian legal culture was created from earlier structures and Ottoman legal cultures and mandates. It will illuminate the court's intermediary position between the interests and demands of the empire and its bureaucrats and the concrete needs of the courts Egyptian patrons.

Courses Taught