King’s History Teaching Fellow Dr Sarah Irving has been awarded the Ibrahim Dakkak Award, a welcome surprise after submitting her article to be considered for publication in the Jerusalem Quarterly.  

“It was a total shock (winning the award), especially as the email had arrived in my junk mail folder so I nearly deleted it. I didn’t actually enter my article for the competition – I simply submitted it like any journal article and was starting to worry that I hadn’t heard back from Jerusalem Quarterly, as it was beyond their normal response time for articles. I thought maybe it was going to get turned down, not that I was being considered for an Award!”

“Following this, I feel a great sense of honour in that the Award is made by a committee with some very important figures in my field, many of whom are themselves Palestinian, so they know that my work speaks to them as being significant is incredibly affirming of my research”, said Dr Irving.

Dr Irving’s article traces the life and works of Stephan Hanna Stephan who was born in Ottoman Palestine in 1894 and died as a refugee in Lebanon in 1949.

 “He was previously really only known for articles he wrote during the 1920s-40s on Palestinian ethnography, but after much digging around in unlikely places, I pieced together a career which included articles on women’s rights, tourist guides for Commonwealth soldiers on leave in Palestine during WWII, teach-yourself manuals for English- or German-speaking students of Arabic, and broadcasts on folklore and popular culture for the British Mandate-run Palestine Broadcasting Service,” said Dr Irving. 

The Ibrahim Dakkak Award for Outstanding Essay on Jerusalem is awarded to an outstanding essay that addresses either contemporary or historical issues relating to Jerusalem.