Johannes A.P. Makar, a historian of the modern Middle East. His research focuses on the history of information and Arabic print culture, with special attention to the role of minority intellectuals. His first book project, titled That Knowledge May Flow: Coptic Intellectuals and the Making of the Egyptian Public Sphere, explores how changes in knowledge practices and public discourse redefined Muslim-Christian relations in 19th-century Egypt. In addition, he is exploring the emergence of Arabic print culture in the Americas and Southeast Asia, particularly in relation to questions around the transoceanic circulation of Arabic knowledge and print technologies.
Makar is currently a Kluge Fellow at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. In 2025, he earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University, where he also curates Coptica, a library platform dedicated to rare Coptic materials at Harvard Library. At the MIT Global Humanities Initiative, he serves as a coordinator in the Good Governance in Bad Times research pillar. He has held research fellowships at Stanford University, Leiden University, and Radboud University. In 2023–2024, he was a visiting scholar at the Department of Arabic Studies at the University of Indonesia.
» Pillar: Good Governance in Bad Times