Dalal Hassane

دلال حسن

دەلال حەسەن

Welcome! I am a senior at Harvard College pursuing a joint concentration in History & Literature and Modern Middle Eastern Studies with a secondary in Social Anthropology. I am passionate about the ways in which national identity, memory, and homeland are engendered through literary works, with a particular focus on Iraq and Kurdistan. I have extensive experience working in Arabic and English-language archives through the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and Harvard’s History and Literature department. I am fluent in Arabic and currently learning Sorani Kurdish as part of Harvard’s new Kurdish language program, for which I advocated during my first year of undergraduate study. I plan to continue my studies and ultimately earn a PhD, with hopes of contributing to literary scholarship on the modern Middle East.

Highlights

  • Recipient of summer research grant to conduct archival research at the University of Exeter’s Center for Kurdish Studies for senior thesis about Kurdish and Arab literary production in Iraq. 

    Work with graduate student mentors throughout the 2025-26 school year to develop thesis and present at 2026 thesis conference.

    View my Weatherhead Center profile here.

  • 2025-2026:

    • Work with Professor Melani Cammett on book project about post-conflict interethnic relations in Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    2024-2025:

    • Worked with Professor Jennifer Derr on an Arabic-language bibliography for book project on the history of liver disease in Egypt, and what it reveals about the histories of biomedicine in the Global South, the formation of the American biomedical empire, and the entanglements among biomedicine, the environment, and the trajectories of capitalism.

    • Read and organized hundreds of relevant articles from Al-Ahram digital archives from mid-late 1900s in order to gather a wealth of historical context on the history of public health programs and liver disease in Egypt.

  • Awarded a travel grant by Harvard’s Center for European Studies to travel to Paris, France for a two-month summer internship at UNESCO as an Archives Research Assistant.

    • Created researcher-enhanced online subject guides/finding aids in LibGuides and archival description system Access to Memory (AtoM).

    • Researched and wrote administrative histories on topics such as the history of literary translation programs for publication in AtoM.

    • Contributed to various outreach efforts, such as writing web articles, helping to redesign an archives brochure, and providing archival research and content for outreach, communications, and events.

  • Founder and President, Harvard Undergraduate Kurdish Cultural Association:

    • Spearhead cultural and political education programming on Kurdistan, including 2023 event, “Kurdish Women: The Voice Disrupting Political Corruption in the Middle East,” which brought together Kurdish women academics, activists, and professionals for a panel discussion.

    • Co-organized Harvard University's 2024 and 2025 Newroz Celebrations (estimated attendance over 200) with a variety of other affinity groups which included several performances, cultural booths, and educational speeches.

    Political Action Co-Chair, Society of Arab Students:

    • Organize speaker events and community conversations surrounding themes of Arab identity, political issues, and cultural preservation across Southwest Asia and North Africa in order to strengthen campus solidarity and community.

In April of 2023, donning traditional Kurdish clothing, I was one of ten students to give a speech at the Harvard Institute of Politics’ second “Our Narratives” showcase. My speech, “Reclaiming the Kurdish-Arab Mixed Identity,” which begins at 21:10, emphasized the impact of my heritage on my work in advocacy and writing.