Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

At the start of the new year, we remember Faruk Tabak (1953-2008), who passed away suddenly in Ankara, Turkey last year while visiting family. Professor Tabak was a mainstay at Georgetown’s McGhee Center for Mediterranean Studies in Alanya, Turkey, where he began teaching in 1995. In August 2000, he was appointed to the SFS core faculty as the Nesuhi Ertegün Assistant Professor of Modern Turkish Studies. Tabak was the co-editor of two volumes—Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East, and Informalization: Process and Structure—and throughout his career published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters. His book, The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550-1870: A Geohistorical Approach, was published just before his death by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Friends and colleagues from around the world continue to speak of the immeasurable contributions Tabak made to their lives on a personal and professional level. Michael Hudson, Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at SFS (CCAS), described Tabak as “a scholar of deep integrity and dedication to his students.” Jakob Reiken (SFS ’07), one of Faruk's former students, spoke of him as a wonderful teacher who radiated kindness and encouraged everyone to make their unique contribution to a better world. “He reminded us of the finer things in life, of love, of play, of dreams—all while teaching us about inequality and injustice with the fervor of a true believer. His spirit lives on in all of the many, many people that his life inspired.”