Mai Lootah holds a doctoral degree from the Department of Religion at Rice University. Her dissertation, “Within the Path of the Wayfarer: Terrestrial Reactions and Interactions to the Comets of 1664–1665 across Ottoman-European Space,” was awarded the John W. Gardner Award for best dissertation in the Humanities for 2025–26. Her doctoral research examines responses to the appearance of the twin comets of 1664 and 1665 through extensive archival work across Europe and Türkiye, tracing in the process the network of correspondence of the “Republic of Letters”—a metaphorical “republic” that connected scholars, philosophers, and scientists in the early modern world through epistolary exchange. Her research interests focus on early modern intellectual history, particularly the intersections of science and religion. Methodologically, she draws on global history and anthropological history, focusing on processes of interpretation and knowledge production as shaped by the mobility of people and objects and cross-cultural interactions. Mai is proficient in Classical languages, such as Greek, Latin, and Arabic, and Ottoman Turkish.
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Research Areas
Medieval and early modern exchange of cosmological, scientific, and philosophical ideas; Latin-Arabic and Latin-Ottoman transmission of ideas; medieval and early modern Christian-Muslim relations; history of astronomy; cultural astronomy; the representation of the sky in art and poetry; Renaissance studies; visual culture studies, art history, Islamic art; manuscript studies.
Education
MA (Distinction), University of Wales Trinity Saint David, United Kingdom, 2017
Honors & Awards
2026, John W. Gardner Award for best dissertation in the Humanities for 2025-26, for dissertation "Within the Path of the Wayfarer: Terrestrial Reactions and Interactions to the Comets of 1664 and 1665 across Ottoman-European Space.”
2025, Edward F. Chavanne Fellowship
2024, Lodieska Stockbridge Vaughn Fellowship for Outstanding Achievement and Promise
2024, James T. Wagoner ’29 Foreign Study Scholarship
2023, Marilyn Marrs Gillet International Travel Fellowship
2023, The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, Best Graduate Student Conference Paper, for the submission “Cosmic Chaos and Transformation in Scientific Qur’anic Exegeses” (first-place)
2020 American Association of Teachers of Arabic Translation Contest, non-literary category, for the translation of a chapter from Sufi text "Qūt al-qulūb" or "The Nourishment of Hearts" (first-place)
2018, Master's in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology Alumni Association Dissertation Prize, for dissertation “Cosmic Chaos in Islamic Apocalyptic Eschatology” (short-listed)