Beth Baron '80

Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern History, City University of New York

There's a kind of explosion in literature about women right now, and a growing interest in the Middle East," says Baron. "It's an exciting time to be involved in those two areas." "Involved" is a bit of an understatement. She was a co-editor of Women in Middle Eastern History, the first-ever serious academic volume dedicated to the subject. Her new book on the early women's press of Egypt has just been accepted by Yale University Press, and she is already at work on another book about sex and honor in modern Egypt. "Beth gives meaning to the idea of a scholarship that transforms our understanding of the past and present," says Dartmouth History Professor Mary Kelley. Baron's scholarship is not simply at the head of her field; it is helping to define it.

Baron is helpingspark a women's lit explosion.