University of Michigan
Melanie S. Tanielian is a historian of famine, mass violence, forced migration, and humanitarianism in the modern Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. Trained at the University of California, Berkeley, she has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan since 2012, where she is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Program in International and Comparative Studies.
Book Project
Under contract with Cambridge University Press, this book traces scandal, religious commitment, and the contested making of German humanitarian authority in the Ottoman world.
Project 2
A project on ports, islands, and coastal zones as environments where refugee mobility is organized, restricted, and held in place across the modern Mediterranean.
Project 3
A project on the historical foundations of the international refugee regime through the politics of classification, recognition, and denial in Damascus in 1926.
Most recently published and forthcoming work.
Edited Volume · 2026
With Michael Atzmon, Gary Krenz, and John Cheney-Lippold. Michigan Publishing, 2026.
Essays honoring H. Chandler Davis and connecting McCarthy-era repression to current struggles over academic freedom, campus protest, censorship, and institutional autonomy.
Edited Volume · Forthcoming December 2026
Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming December 2026.
A collection on how objects, bodies, images, and performances carry forward histories of mass violence and transform what counts as an archive.
Book Chapter
Civilian challenges to the state and demands for food (with Mustafa Aksakal).
Article
Published online: 05 Feb 2024.
Article
Ecology of empire and the sounds of crisis.
Courses include Human Rights, Modern Middle East, Genocide, and Gender & Sexuality in the Middle East.
Writing on teaching practice and ongoing archival research.
Academic CV and additional teaching/research resources.
Images from archives, fieldwork, and research travel connected to ongoing projects.
Public-facing conversations, interviews, and writing for wider audiences.
A space for digital projects, curated materials, and future public-facing exhibits.