Robert Kramer

Professor of History

B.A., Bard College
M.A., University of Chicago
Ph.D., Northwestern University

Programs: History

Robert Kramer has been a member of the faculty since 1989, teaching courses on the history of the Middle East and Africa.  He earned his undergraduate degree (History) from Bard College, his M.A. degree (Middle East Studies) from The University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. (African History) from Northwestern University.  Additionally he studied Arabic at The American University in Cairo from 1980-1982. 

Dr. Kramer's specialization is the Sudan, and in particular its social history from the 18th-20th centuries. He is primarily interested in issues of identity change and social integration, as well as messianic thought in Islam.  He was a Fulbright Scholar in Khartoum, Sudan from 1986-1987, where he conducted research on the city of Omdurman during the 19th century. Dr. Kramer has also conducted research at the Public Records Office in London and the Sudan Archive at the University of Durham, and in 1990 spent six months in Kumasi, Ghana studying the local branch of the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood. 

In addition to serving as chief author of The Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, 4th edition (2013), Dr. Kramer is the author of Holy City on the Nile: Omdurman During the Mahdiyya, 1885-1898 (2010). He was co-editor of The Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, 3rd edition (2002) and has written many articles, book chapters, scholarly reference work entries and book reviews. He is also committed to public speaking about the Middle East and Islamic world.

In 2015, Dr. Kramer received St. Norbert College’s Leonard Ledvina Award for Excellence in Teaching. He also received the Donald B. King Distinguished Scholar Award in 2011, the Rembert Weakland Community Service Award in 2003 and the Thomas A. Manion Award for Internationalization in 2017.

Courses
HIST 120 Survey of Middle Eastern History
HIST 210 Making History: Truth and Myth
HIST 340/PEAC 340 Israel/Palestine: The Roots of Arab-Israeli Conflict
HIST 341 Islam and Victorianism in Nineteenth-Century Africa
HIST 343 Modern Middle East
HIST 345 Slavery in World History
HIST 354 Issues in the Contemporary Middle East
GENS 420 The End of the World