Tufts University Professor Earns France’s Legion of Honor

Leila Fawaz, the Issam M. Fares Professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University, was named a “chevalier” in the French National Order of the Legion of Honor. She was honored for her “exemplary personal commitment to French-American relations” and for her efforts to promote French academic research and thought at prestigious American universities.”

The award was established by Napoleon Bonaparte and is now given out by decree of the president of France.

Professor Fawaz is also the director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts. She joined the university’s faculty in 1980 and has served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and was associate dean of the faculty

Professor Fawaz served on the board of overseers of Harvard University from 1996 to 2012. She is a former president of the Middle East Studies Associate of North America and is a former editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. She is the author of An Occasion for War: Civil Conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860 and Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth Century Beirut. She has also been the editor of several other books.

Dr. Fawaz holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the American University of Beirut. She holds a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.