From 1990 to 1994, she Fawaz was the editor-in-chief of The International Journal of Middle East Studies, there she advanced the notion of conducting analytical and comparative research, with an international and cross-disciplinary approach.[6] She bemoaned the overspecialization within the field, the neglect of attention to humanities/arts and, uninteresting writing, and linked these problems to Middle East studies as a whole, because researchers were "still a long way from being pathfinders in the world of scholarship generally."[2][3][6]