The Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies MA Thesis Award
2024/25 Call for submissions
The Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies announces the annual MA thesis award for the best MA thesis on a topic related to the Middle East submitted at a Nordic educational institution. All students submitting their thesis between 16 August 2024 and 15 August 2025 are eligible for the award. The thesis must be nominated by the supervisor, and will be read by a three-member committee.
The thesis must be written on a topic related to the Middle East region, including North Africa, Iran, Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula. The thesis must be submitted at an educational institution in one of the Nordic countries (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) and written in English, Norwegian, Swedish or Danish. The application must include the following, in one single PDF:
1. A completed submission form (found here)
2. A letter of recommendation from the thesis supervisor
3. A digital copy of the thesis
4. Copy of the certificate of completed Master’s degree. If this is not issued at the time of submission a confirmation of submitted thesis should be included instead, and the certificate shall be sent after issuance
Deadline for submissions is 15 October 2025. The winner of the award will be announced in February 2026. The winner will receive a certificate and a token of achievement. The application should be sent to secretary@nsmes.org.
The winner of 2023/24 MA Thesis Award was Davide de Francesco with his thesis From Dawn to Dusk. Studying the origin of the Islamic fivefold daily liturgy in the Quran.
Davide de Francesco‘s dissertation is a rigorous study of a basic tenet of the Islamic faith, the five daily prayers. It is a very mature piece of academic work with a high level of academic craftmanship. The project sets out to fill a gap in existing research and very convincingly not only does that but also engages with the academic literature in a critical and independent manner. De Francesco combines the different data sources, Quranic verses and hadith with historical information on the socio-religious environment of 7th century Arabia, in a compelling way to support his argument. There is also a strong alignment of the different elements of the thesis - a clear research questions is working as a guiding principle that results in clearly articulated argument - and thus contribution to the field of study.
The committee decided to give honorable mention to Rahma Fateen for her thesis From the Homefront to the Prison Gate: Ethnographic Perspectives on Muslim Brotherhood Wives in Egypt Post-2013. The very well conducted thesis fills a gap in Middle Eastern studies and furthers the research on the family members of Islamists and political prisoners.
The committee was unanimous in its decision and its members were Tiina Hyyppä, Christine Crone and Thorir Hraundal.
Previous winners:
- 2024: Lili De Paola, University of Helsinki. “Constructing Saudi Arabian Nationhood: Shaping Subjectivities Through Suitable Pasts, Imagined Futures and National Femininities”.
- 2023: Maiken Omnes Frydenlund, University of Oslo. “Meddling with my Dough-Baking Hands! Protest Language and Stigma in Contemporary Turkey”.
- 2022: Mathias Ghyoot, University of Copenhagen. “Brothers Behind Bars: A History of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Second Prison Ordeal, 1954 – 1964”.