Brinkley M. Messick, 1946–2025

Research Interests

Institutions, Law, Governmentality
Intellectual & Disciplinary Histories
Language, Social Theory, Critical Theory
Museums, Archives, Practices of Memory
Text, Translation, Writing, Aesthetics
Empires, States, Sovereignties

Research Concentrations

Islamic Texts, Calligraphic State

Regions

Middle East, Northern Africa; Yemen

Biography

Writing and reading, considered as cultural and historical phenomena, have figured centrally in Brinkley Messick’s research on Islamic societies in both Arabia and North Africa. This work considers the production and circulation, inscription and subsequent interpretation of Arabic texts such as regional histories, law books, and court records. Messick has sought to understand the relation of writing and authority, events such as the advent of print technology, hybrid contemporary practices of reading, and local histories of record keeping and archiving. Much of this work dovetails with Messick's general interests in legal anthropology and legal history, and with his specific interests in Islamic law. 

His two current projects are on shari'a litigation, focusing on doctrine and court records and questions of truth and method, and evidence and interpretation; and on the agrarian shari'a, concerning the relations of landed property, trade, state and family.

Education

Princeton University, PhD in Anthropology, 1978
Princeton University, MA in Anthropology and Near East Studies, 1974
University of Pennsylvania, BA in Economics, 1969

In Memoriam Brinkley Messick, 1946–2025

Updated September 2, 2025