Omar  Nasr

Omar Nasr

PhD Student

Department of International History

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Languages
Arabic, English, German
Key Expertise
Modern Europe and Middle East, Islam and the West

About me

Omar Nasr is a PhD candidate in International History at the LSE. His doctoral thesis, "The British Empire and Islam in the Second World War", is supervised by Dr David Motadel and Professor Marc Baer

Before joining LSE, Omar studied History, Political Education, and German Philology at the University of Vienna, where he graduated with a BA in History. He received his MA in Near and Middle Eastern History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Aside from his research at LSE, Omar is currently the co-editor of the LSE International History Blog. He also co-initiated the oral history project "Muslims in Austria" documenting life-stories of first-generation Austrian Muslims.

Provisional thesis title
The British Empire and Islam in the Second World War
Omar’s doctoral thesis aims to shed light on the role that Islam played in British wartime propaganda, in the building of political alliances with Muslim states and movements, and as a means to recruit, accommodate and moralise Muslim soldiers in the British army for the war against the Axis powers.

Expertise Details

British Empire; Modern Europe and Middle East; First and Second World War; Muslims in the West; Germany; Austria; Social History; Intellectual History; Oral History; Biographical Research; Memory Studies; Migration Studies.

Grants

  • Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation,Travel Grant, 2022
  • Contemporary Austrian History Day, Travel Grant, 2022
  • LSE, Postgraduate Travel Grant, 2022

Conference Papers

  • July 2022, London: "Collective Memory of Muslim Communities in Post-War Europe: History and Belonging of Muslims in Austria", Oral History Society (OHS).
  • April 2022, New Orleans: "Muslims in interwar Vienna", University of New Orleans, Austrian Studies Association (ASA).
  • April 2022, Salzburg: "Institutionalising Islam in interwar Austria", Austrian Contemporary History Day (ZGT).
  • June 2019, Vienna: "Epistemological Development of students of history and anthropology at the University of Vienna", Student Conference at University of Vienna, Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL).