Dr. Devin Naar

Biography

Devin Naar is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Sephardic Studies Program at the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies. He earned a PhD in History from Stanford University in 2011 and has had a notable academic career focusing on modern Jewish history, particularly Sephardic culture. Dr. Naar's research includes the examination of the Jewish community in Salonica during the 19th and 20th centuries, which he details in his award-winning book, 'Jewish Salonica: Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece,' published by Stanford University Press in 2016. He has received the National Jewish Book Award for this work, which utilizes previously unstudied primary sources to explore the Jewish community's responses to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Dr. Naar also oversees a significant project that has created a Sephardic Studies Digital Library Archive, which houses over 1,500 artifacts related to Sephardic culture. He has served on the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History in New York and has been a fellow at the Society of Scholars at the Simpson Center for the Humanities. Dr. Naar teaches courses on modern Jewish history, Sephardic history and culture, and the interactions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims during the Ottoman era.

Research Interests