My work seeks to expose the oppressive powers at the heart of institutions and movements that claim to be liberating.
My aim is to highlight the unexpected places that power resides, so that we might collectively and with more awareness build a better world.
I have written about this phenomenon in art worlds, universities, and revolutions with a focus on the Middle East and the United States. In books and articles, I investigate how people invest certain institutions and actions with liberating and creative potential but sometimes overlook their oppressive aspects.
I specialize in how this process occurs through people’s engagements with: material and visual culture; cultural politics and development; knowledge production; and state and non-governmental institutions.
I focus on how social hierarchies of gender, social class, race/ethnicity, generation, and religion shape these engagements.
I am currently writing a book on counter-revolutionary aesthetics in Egypt, which explores how aesthetic forms, judgments, and practices play a central role in both delegitimizing revolutionary movements and in attracting people to authoritarianism.
Key Publications
Books
Anthropology’s Politics: Disciplining the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2015). Co-authored with Lara Deeb.
Creative Reckonings: The Politics of Art and Culture in Contemporary Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2006). Winner of the Albert Hourani Book Award, given by the Middle East Studies Association for the best book in Middle East studies. Winner of the Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award given by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association.
Selected Articles
“The Power of Nonsense: Humor in Egypt’s Counter/Revolution.” British Journal of Middle East Studies 48(1):1-15, 2021.
“When They Don’t Like What We Write: Criticism of Anthropology as a Diagnostic of Power.” Co-authored with Lara Deeb. In The Scholar As Writer: Writing Anthropology, Ethnography, and Beyond. Carole McGranahan, ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.
“Dissenting Bodies: The Performance Art of Adham Hafez.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 11:123-140, 2018.
“A Civilized Revolution: Aesthetics and Political Action in Egypt.” American Ethnologist 43(4):609-622, 2016.
“Islam at the Art School: Religious Young Artists in Egypt.” In Islam and Popular Culture, Karin van Nieuwkerk, Mark Levine, and Martin Stokes, eds. University of Texas Press, 187-203, 2016.
"Civilizing Muslim Youth: Egyptian State Culture Programs and Islamic Television Preachers," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Volume 20, 445-465, 2014.
“Anthropologies of Arab-Majority Societies,” Annual Review of Anthropology. Co-authored with Lara Deeb. Volume 41, 537-558, 2012.
“The Privilege of Revolution: Gender, Class, Space, and Affect in Cairo.” American Ethnologist 39(1), 67-70, 2012.
“Culture is the Solution: The Civilizing Mission of the Egyptian State.” Review of Middle East Studies 43(2):189-197, 2009.
“The Humanity Game: Art, Islam, and the War on Terror,” Anthropological Quarterly, 81(3):651-681, 2008.
“Cultural Sovereignty in a Global Art Economy: Egyptian Cultural Policy and the New Western Interest in Art from the Middle East.” Cultural Anthropology 21(2):173-204, 2006.
“Of Chadors and Purple Fingers: U.S. Visual Media Coverage of the 2005 Iraqi Elections.” Feminist Media Studies 5(3):391-395, 2005.
“In Many Worlds: a discussion with Egyptian artist Sabah Naeem.” Meridians: a journal of feminism, race, transnationalism 2(2):146-162, 2002.