Asher Kaufman (Ph.D. Brandeis University, 2000) joined the University of Notre Dame faculty in August 2005. Prior to that, he taught at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. From 2000 to 2004, he was a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, and headed its Middle East Unit in 2004-05. Kaufman was appointed director of doctoral of studies at the Kroc Institute in January 2011.
Kaufman is the author of Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon (I.B. Tauris, 2004), a history of modern Lebanese national identity. He has also written articles on topics such as the evolution of Hizbullah (the Shi‘ite radical movement in Lebanon), Israeli policy in the Middle East, and various boundary disputes in the region.
He is completing a book manuscript on the Syria, Lebanon and Israeli tri-border region, focusing on the history of its cartography, border dynamics between the three states, and domestic and regional politics of the contemporary border disputes.
Among his recent publications are "Forgetting the Lebanon War? On Silence, Denial and Selective Remembrance of the 'First' Lebanon War," in Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century, edited by Efrat Ben Ze'ev, Ruth Ginio and Jay Winter (Cambridge University Press, 2010); " 'Let Sleeping Dogs Lie:' On Ghajar and Other Anomalies in the Syria-Lebanon-Israel Tri-Border Region," Middle East Journal (Fall 2009); “Henri Lammens and Syrian Nationalism,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), The Origins of Syrian Nationhood (Routledge, 2011).
