Christopher Anzalone

Background

About Christopher Anzalone

I am an Assistant Professor of Security Studies covering violent non- & quasi-state actors/VEOs, rebellion & insurgency, political violence and terrorism, and the Middle East and Africa at the Command and Staff College at Marine Corps University and an affiliate scholar at George Mason University’s Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies. Formerly I was both a postdoctoral and predoctoral research fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs from 2016-2019. My research areas include political Islam, political violence and terrorism, Shi’i Islam, and Islamic visual cultures and narratives of martyrdom and self-sacrifice. I completed a Ph.D. in Islamic, Middle Eastern, and African studies at McGill University, an M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a B.A. double major in history and religious studies from George Mason University. Methodologically my research is grounded in history and political sociology. My first book project, Islamizing Rebel Governance: Jihadi Insurgencies and Symbolic Power, examines the symbolic, framing, and narrative dimensions of territorial proto-state governing projects of Islamist rebel groups including Al-Shabab in Somalia, Islamic State and its branches, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Afghan Taliban. I blog about my research interests at: https://ibnsiqilli.com/