Joshua M. Landis (born May 14, 1957) is an American academic who specializes in the Middle East and is an expert on Syria.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He is the head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma,[7] and since 2004, he has published the blog Syria Comment.[8] He is married to Manar Kachour and has two sons, Kendall and Jonah Landis.
Landis was born on May 14, 1957, in Manhattan, New York City, New York. When he was one year old, his family moved to Saudi Arabia, where his father was sent by Citibank to open the first branch of an American bank in the country. After staying in Saudi Arabia for three years, Landis' family moved to Beirut, Lebanon, due to his father being transferred there to work as Citibank's vice-president for the Middle East. When Landis was ten years old, his family moved back to the United States.
Fluent in Arabic and French, he has studied Turkish, Italian, and Ottoman Turkish. He has received three Fulbright grants and a Social Science Research Council award.
He taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Wake Forest University, and Princeton University before moving to the University of Oklahoma. Since May 2004, Landis has published the Syrian Comment blog, which focuses on Syrian politics, history, and religion. Landis regularly travels to Washington, D.C., to consult with government agencies.[citation needed]
Syria and the 1948 War in Palestine A shorter version of this article was published as “Syria in the 1948 Palestine War: Fighting King Abdullah’s Greater Syria Plan,” in Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds., Rewriting the Palestine War: 1948 and the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 178–205. (Translated into French, Spanish and Arabic)
Islamic Education In Syria: Undoing Secularism in Eleanor Doumato and Gregory Starrett, Eds., Teaching Islam: Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East, London & Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007, pp. 177–196.
"The Syrian Opposition,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 30, pp. 45–68. 2007. (written with Joe Pace)