Graduate Student, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies
PhD Candidate
Thesis Title: Hollywood's Aesthetic Use of Salah al-Din to Critique Contemporary Western Leaders
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Carole Hillenbrand
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About
Stephanie Tait is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh's Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department. She earned a Masters of arts in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of London's School of African and Oriental Studies in 2006, and a Bachelor of arts in Film Studies from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Her PhD research involves not only analysing the visual aesthetics of Hollywood's portrayal of Saladin in post-war periods, but also the 20th century political and social contexts for each of the films chosen for this study.
Other current research projects include: "Reclaiming the Self in the Other: a journey through Ahmad ibn Fadlan's travel accounts, Michael Crichton's 'Eaters of the Dead' and the film 'The 13th Warrior'"; 'The Last Temptation of Mahfouz,' an expansion of her Master's thesis on Naguib Mahfouz's portrayal of Mary Magdalene in his novel 'Children of the Gebelawi'; and the ongoing study of Costume and Identity in Historical films.
