Dr. Michael A. Rapoport

Image of Dr. Michael A. Rapoport

Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies
Chastain-Johnston Middle Eastern Studies Distinguished Professor in Peace Studies, 2022-2024
Director, Arabic Studies Program
Office: Culture and Society Building - 97, Room 241
Tel: 561.297.0307
E-mail: mrapoport@fau.edu

Fall 2023 Office Hours: by appointment

Professor Rapoport is a scholar of pre-modern Arabic and Islamic intellectual history, with interests in philosophy, science, theology, and medicine. He is an expert on the philosophy and legacy of Avicenna (Arabic, Ibn Sīnā). His first book, Science of the Soul in Ibn Sīnā’s Pointers and Reminders (Brill: 2023), examines Avicenna’s most challenging and influential text, which presents scientific explanations for a variety of phenomena associated with the soul, from cognition to clairvoyance, prophecy, and magic. His research has also appeared in the journals Oriens and Nazariyat . Dr. Rapoport earned his PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Yale University (2018). He also holds a master's degree in Islamic and Near Eastern Studies from Washington University in St. Louis (2012) and bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Spanish from Marist College (2007). He has studied Arabic at the Qalam wa Lawh Center for Arabic Studies (Rabat, Morocco) and the Qasid Arabic Institute (Amman, Jordan).

Professor Rapoport's current research project is a scholalry edition and translation of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's Compendium of Logic and Philosophy (Mulakhkhas al-mantiq wa-l-hikma), a 12th-century book that attemps to present a coherent, systematic account of all scientific disciplines at the time. The project is supported by funding from the American Philosophical Society's Franklin Research Grant and a research award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the 2023-24 academic year.

Professor Rapoport is leading the development of a new minor in Health Humanities, which will offer students opportunities to examine how people understand and experience health, illness, and medicine across cultures, places, and times, through the perspectives of the humanities, arts, and social sciences. If you’re interested in the new minor, feel free to reach out to Prof. Rapoport here.

Professor Rapoport teaches courses on Arabic language and Arab(ic) and Islamic literature, culture, and history. He has taught the following courses at FAU:

  • LIT 2100 Introduction to World Literature (partially meets the Intellectual Foundations Program’s “Foundation of Humanities” requirement)
  • ARA 1120 and 1121, Beginning Arabic Language and Culture 1 and 2
  • FOL 4933 Special Topics: Arabian Nights, Then and Now
  • FOL 4933 Special Topics: Gender and Sexuality in Arab and Islamic Cultures

Professor Rapoport always welcomes student input. If any student would like a course offered on a particular topic, feel free to contact him here.

Professor Rapoport is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Peace, Justice and Human Rights and the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.