Alessia Zubani

Alessia Zubani is a Newton International Fellow in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and a Research Associate at the French Institute for Anatolian Studies (IFEA) in Istanbul, Turkey. Her research explores the history of technology in the late antique and medieval Middle East and its importance as a fundamental element in political and royal ideologies of power. The role played by mechanical devices, from automata to talking statues and water clocks, in the practices of definition and legitimation of the political authority, is her primary focus. She holds a joint PhD in History and Cultural Heritage Studies from the École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL, France, and the University of Bologna, Italy (2020). In 2021, her dissertation received the Prix de thèse de la Chancellerie de Paris and the Prix de thèse PSL. Previously, she has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Bologna (2021), the Excellence Research Cluster HASTEC in Paris (2021-2022), and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris (2022-2023).