 He served as Director of Graduate Studies in the History Department at Stanford University in 2002–2004 and again in 2005–06, but then took a leave of absence from that institution in order to take up a position as Director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo.At the time he said that Stanford was institutionally uninterested in the study and teaching of the modern Middle East.Beinin has written four books and co-edited three others and published many scholarly articles.