Research Fields

• History of Inner Asia;
• History of Imperial China;
• History of the Pre-Modern Muslim world;
• The Mongol Empire; Central Asia;
• Cross-Cultural Contacts between China and the Muslim World;
• Ilkhanid Baghdad;
• Mobility;
• Migrations;
• Nomadic culture;
• Conversion;
• Transmission of knowledge;
• Historiography;
• Collective Memory

About

Michal Biran is the Max and Sophie Mydans Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a member of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities. Since October 2021, she has served as head of the Institute of Asian and African Study at HUJI.  She is a historian of Inner Asia, imperial China and the medieval Islamic world. She teaches in the departments of Asian Studies and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prof. Biran has published extensively on the Mongol Empire, Mongol and pre-Mongol Central Asia (especially the Qara Khitai and the Chaghadaids), cross-cultural contacts between China, nomadic empires and the Muslim world, comparative study of empires, nomadic culture, migrations and mobility, and Ilkhanid Baghdad. 

Prof. Biran has authored or edited 12 books and volumes and authored dozens of articles. She has recently completed editing The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire along with Hodong Kim (2 vols. forthcoming 2022).

 

Selected Publications

1. Michal Biran. Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Presss, 1997. (Kindle edition 2013; Reprint: London: Routledge 2016).

2. Michal Biran. The Qara Khitai Empire in Eurasian History: Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, 2008.

3. Michal Biran. Chinggis Khan. (“The Makers of the Muslim World”). Oxford: OneWorld Publications, 2007 (Kindle edition 2012; Mongolian translation 2015; Turkish translation 2019).

4. Michal Biran, ed. Mobility and Transformation: Cultural Exchange in Mongol Eurasia Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient  62: 2-3 (2019).

5. Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack and Francesca Fiaschetti, eds. Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, Intellectuals. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020. (Korean translation 2021).

 

Selected Awards

      2021-           Corresponding Member, The Austrian Academy of Sciences

2009, 2013, 2015     Excellent Teaching Award, HUJI

2014-          Fellow, The Israel Academy for Sciences and Humanities

2014           The Klachky Prize for the Advancement of the Frontiers of Science, HUJI 

2012-2017 The Anneliese Maier Research Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Asian Studies)

2007           The Landau Prize for Research and Sciences (History of East Asia and Its Cultures)

2006-9 -      The Michael Bruno Prize, The Rothschild Foundation (Middle Eastern Studies) {frozen 2007-2011 for personal reasons}

2004-5         The Yoram Ben-Porat Presidential Prize for Excelling Young Researcher, HUJI.

 

Teaching

Courses taught in the last 5 years (B.A., M.A.)

BA Courses (last 5 years):

Introduction to the History and Culture of Late Imperial China (906-1911) (Lesson, EAS).

The Silk Roads: Asia and the Muslim World in the Pre-Modern Era (Seminar, ME)

Between China and the Mideast: Issues in Central Asian History (Seminar, ME and  EAS).

The Mongols in the Islamic World (Seminar, ME).

Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Pre-Modern Muslim World (BA seminar, ME)

Honors Program in Chinese Studies (with Yuri Pines and Orna Naftali/ Gideon Shelach and Yuri Pines) (EAS)

MA Courses (last 5 years):

Mobility and Transformation in Mongol Eurasia (ERC seminar 2015, 2017).

Silk Roads Encounters in North West China (Touring course in NW China, with Yuri Pines and Gideon Shelach, summer 2017, EAS)

 Eurasian Nomads in World History (ME, with Michael Shenkar 2019-20)

Issues in Ilkhanid History: The Mongols in Greater Iran (ME, 2021).