Mériam N. Belli writes on the social and cultural history of the Middle East. Her first book, An Incurable Past: Nasser’s Egypt Now and Then (University Press of Florida, c2013; 2017) explores the 1950s-1960s and their representations within Egyptian society through stories of schooling (national memory); war and effigy-burning on the Suez Canal (local memories); and the apparition of the Virgin Mary (communitarian memories). Belli earned a PhD in Middle East history from Georgetown University in 2005. She earned an MA and a DEA (post-Masters thesis) in history at INALCO, Paris, France. Between 2005 and 2008, she taught at Georgetown University; for Pepperdine University’s internship program in Washington, DC; and at MIT, Cambridge, Mass. She joined the History Department at the University of Iowa in the fall of 2008.