Dr. Magdalena Moorthy-Kloss
Associated Researcher
Positions
Academic degrees
Scholarships and Fellowships
Peer-reviewed publications
Published:
2024. Unfree Lives – Slaves at the Najahid and Rasulid Courts of Yemen. Monograph published in the series Studies in Global Slavery. Leiden: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/9789004693784
2023. Slavery in Medieval Arabia. Book chapter for the Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery. Editors: Juliane Schiel, Damian Pargas. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13260-5_8
2023. Race and the Legacy of Slavery in Yemen. Journal article in History and Anthropology. London: Taylor & Francis. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2023.2164927
2021. Eunuchs at the Service of Yemen’s Rasulid Dynasty (626-858 H /1229-1454 CE). Special issue of Der Islam, Vol 98: 6-26. Editors: Daniel M. Varisco, Daniel Mahoney. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2021-0002
2017. Sklaven, Soldaten und Souveräne - die Naǧāḥiden des mittelalterlichen Jemen. Journal article in Jemen Report 2017.
Under review:
2025. The Najahids: Ethiopian slaves as rulers over Southeast Yemen. Book chapter for volume Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Red Sea. Editors: Jonathan Miran, Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner.
2024. Slave trading across the Red Sea in the Rasulid era (626-858 AH / 1229-1454 CE). Article for the Proceedings of the 10th Red Sea Conference, journal tbd. Editors: Roxani Eleni Margariti, Antonis Anastasopoulos.
2024. Concubinage in medieval Yemen – a biographical-intersectional approach. Article for a special issue on Slavery in Islamic Law (journal tbd). Editors: Stephan Conermann, Serena Tolino.
Lectures and Conference Papers
Upcoming: Slave trading to and from medieval Yemen. Harvard University: SlaveVoyages Conference. 03.-05.04.2025.
Upcoming: Social identities after enslavement. Long-Distance Trafficking: Effects on Enslaved Individuals in the Indian Ocean World and Its Hinterlands. Leiden, The Netherlands: European Social Science History Conference. 26-29.03.2025.
Upcoming: Yemen’s history of slavery and its lasting impact on social and racial hierarchies. Leiden University: Yemeni Studies Lecture Series. 21.10.2024.
Intersectional approaches to the study of sexual slavery. Vienna, Austria: Annual Global History Workshop - Intersecting inequalities. 20.06.2024.
Yemeni sources on Red Sea slave trading, ca. 11th-15th century CE. Paris, France: Hidden Archives of Capitalism and Slavery in the Indian Ocean World: State, Business, and Personal Collections. Conference of the project Global Passages: Creating a Public Database of Slaving Voyages across the Indian Ocean and Asia. 22-24.04.2024.
The Najahids: Ethiopian slaves as rulers over Southeast Yemen. Vienna, Austria: German Middle East Studies Association for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO). 21.09.2023. Co-panelists: Marieke Brandt, Shada Bokir, Alexander Weissenburger (all Austrian Academy of Sciences).
Response: Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies - Perspectives from Legal and Intellectual History. Vienna, Austria: German Middle East Studies Association for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO). 21.09.2023. Co-panelists: Omar Anchassi, Laura Rowitz, Laura Emunds (all University of Bern).
Concubinage in medieval Yemen – a biographical-intersectional approach. Murtensee, Switzerland: Workshop on Slavery in Islamic Law, organized by the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies and the project Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies, 01.09.2023.
Slave trading across the Red Sea in the Rasulid era (626-858 AH / 1229-1454 CE). Crete, Greece: Red Sea Project X - Red Sea Horizons, Edges and Transitions, 06.-09.07.2022. Co-panelists: Marina Rustow (Princeton), Craig Perry (Emory).
The impact of medieval slavery on racialist discourse in Yemen. Montreal, Race in the medieval MENA region, Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, 28.-31.10.21. Co-panelists: Lamia Balafrej (UCLA), Hannah Barker (Arizona State), Peter Webb (Leiden).
Slaves in medieval Yemeni texts (ca. 12th -15th century). University of Vienna, Forschungsgespräch des FSP Globalgeschichte, 04.04.2019.
Eunuchs at the service of the Rasulids. University of Bonn, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Rasulid Entanglement in the Medieval Islamic World, 29.03.2019. Co-panelists: Daniel M. Varisco (Princeton), Roxani E. Margariti (Emory), Ingrid Hehmeyer (Ryerson), Ellen Kenney (American University Cairo), Daniel Mahoney (Ghent).
Speaker in the panel Histories of slavery in medieval Islamic societies. Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference, Washington D.C., 19.11.2017. Co-panelists: Craig Perry (Emory), Matthew S. Gordon (Miami), Elizabeth Urban (West Chester).
African ancestry as a fragile marker of ‘otherness’ in medieval Yemen. University of Leeds, International Medieval Congress, 05.07.2017.
Queen trumps knave? Elite slaves and courtly women in medieval Yemen. Speaking of Medieval Slavery. University of Leeds, International Medieval Congress, 06.07.2016.
Slaves, soldiers and sovereigns: African slaves in medieval South Arabia. University of Leeds, International Medieval Congress, 09.07.2015.
Ethiopian slaves in Yemen – a study of medieval Arabic texts. Warsaw, International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, 25.08.2015.
Academic Conference and Panel Organization
Panel Race in the medieval MENA region. Montreal, Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, 28.-31.10.21. Co-panelists: Lamia Balafrej (UCLA), Hannah Barker (Arizona State), Peter Webb (Leiden).
Conference Speaking of medieval slavery. University of Leeds, International Medieval Congress, 04.- 07.07.2016. Over 30 international slavery experts participated, including Shaun Marmon (Princeton), Marek Jankoviak (Oxford), Daniel Melleno (Berkeley), Cristina de la Puente (CSIC), Deborah Tor (Notre Dame).