Laila Parsons

Professor

Joint appointment History/Islamic Studies   

-- on sabbatical until August 2025 --

I received my D.Phil from St Antony’s College, Oxford University, in 1996. The title of my D.Phil. thesis was “The Druze in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1949” and it was completed under the supervision of Avi Shlaim. After receiving my D.Phil., I moved to the U.S where I worked at Harvard University as a lecturer, and as the Associate Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Later I worked as an assistant professor in the Department of History at Yale University. I moved to McGill in 2004 to take up a joint position in the Department of History and Classical Studies and the Institute for Islamic Studies. In 2007 I received tenure and became an associate professor at McGill. In 2018, I was promoted to full professor.  While working at McGill I have served as the director of the Middle East Studies Program (2006-2010, and 2011-2012), and as the Graduate Program Director in the Institute of Islamic Studies (2012-2014).