Tylor Brand is a historian specializing in the impacts of calamities on individuals and society in the Middle East. Originally from Arizona, Tylor moved to Lebanon to complete his Ph.D. at the American University of Beirut. Living amid the residues of crises in Beirut, he reluctantly gained an understanding of the complexity of life in times of disaster. After six years in Beirut and three spent in the United Arab Emirates, he relocated to Ireland, where he is currently an Assistant Professor of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Trinity College, Dublin.

His book, Famine Worlds, offers a profound meditation on what it meant to live through the collective trauma of the Lebanese Famine of World War I, and how doing so shaped the character of society. Brand shows how living amid omnipresent suffering can create a particular rationality that touches the most fundamental parts of our being, even down to the ways people view and interact with each other.