Congratulations to Susan Gilson Miller
Congratulations to Susan Gilson Miller, Professor of History Emerita, University of California, Davis, on being inducted into the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco!
This prestigious honor recognizes Professor Miller’s profound and pioneering scholarly contributions to the history of Morocco and of the Maghreb more widely. In addition to numerous articles, she is the author of A History of Modern Morocco (Cambridge University Press), Disorienting Encounters: Travels of a Moroccan Scholar in France in 1845-1846. The Voyage of Muhammad As-Saffar (University of California Press, winner of the Ibn Battuta Prize), and, most recently, Years of Glory: Nelly Benatar and the Pursuit of Justice in Wartime North Africa (Stanford University Press), which tells the story of a heroic Moroccan Jewish woman lawyer who assisted thousands of European refugees transiting through Morocco in their flight from Nazism to reach safe havens in the Americas. Professor Miller is also the co-editor of two groundbreaking volumes: The Architecture and Memory of the Minority Quarter of the Muslim Mediterranean City (Harvard Graduate School of Design) and Berbers and Others: Beyond Tribe and Nation in the Maghrib (Indiana University Press).
The Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco was created in 1977 by King Hassan II as an instrument for enriching Morocco's intellectual life, to increase knowledge about its national identity, and to invite foreign scholars to participate in broadening and modernizing Morocco's cultural and scientific landscape. The Academy recently underwent a complete reorganization in order to keep its goals in step with contemporary concerns, especially in the areas of the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and Moroccan Heritage.
Membership in the Academy is made up of thirty Moroccan Members and thirty Associate Members from overseas. All Associate Members are nominated by a selection committee based on the candidate's profile and achievements. Current Associate Members come from fourteen different countries: China, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Germany, Great Britain, Lebanon, Mauritania, Senegal, South Africa, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, the United States, and Zimbabwe. The four U.S. members are historians specializing in Moroccan anthropology (Aomar Boum, UCLA), Islamic studies (Kevin Reinhardt, Dartmouth), environmental history (John McNeill, Georgetown University), and Moroccan history (Susan Miller, UC Davis). Members of the Academy convene twice yearly for topical workshops and plenary sessions; they also sit on smaller committees to plan future programs of the Academy.
The renewed Academy was created by a royal proclamation as an intellectual project under the auspices and protection of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. Its orientation responds to his recommendations for studying matters of citizenship, development, and modernity. Recognition of Morocco's own human diversity is reflected in its Resident membership, while its Associate Members represent Morocco's opening to the wider world.