On Sunday May 13, Professor Barbara Freyer Stowasser passed away in Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington D.C. Dr. Stowasser was a professor in the Arab and Islamic Studies department for 18 years. Her first lectures at Georgetown date back to 1966. The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies created a Facebook thread in honor of Dr. Stowasser with a long thread of comments from friends and family giving condolences and remembering her legacy.
Stowasser was the director of CCAS on three different occasions during her time at Georgetown and an invaluable scholar on women’s studies in the Qur’an and hadith.The CCAS website describes her as a “colleague of rare intellect, compassion, and humor.” She also served on the Board of Advisory Editors for the Middle East Journal.
In addition to the Facebook thread, CCAS also made a “podbean” page with a space for students, faculty, and friends to leave their thoughts about Stowasser’s time at Georgetown. In a comment on the page, a professor remarked that Stowasser was an inspiration. “Of all the professors who trained me, Barbara Stowasser is one of the ones I think of most often as a role model now that I am professor myself … I also adored her for her sudden quirky laugh, and for her sense of compassion,” the comment read.
In an email yesterday to the Georgetown community, Provost Jim O’Donnell informed students and faculty about her death, stating that “It is hard to describe just how much we lose with her passing.”
