Atef Said is a sociologist, who defines himself as passionate about politics, revolutions, and social change. His scholarship engages with the fields of sociological theory, political sociology, historical sociology, sociology of colonialism and empire, sociology of the Middle East, and global sociology. He is currently an associate professor of sociology at the university of Illinois at Chicago. Before moving to the academia, he worked as a human rights attorney and researcher in Egypt, from 1995 to 2004. While there, he practiced human rights law and directed research initiatives at several human rights organizations. He wrote two books, Torture in Egypt: A Judicial Reality (2000), published by the Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners, and Torture Is a Crime Against Humanity (2008), published by the Hisham Mubarak Law Center. Both organizations are based in Cairo, Egypt. And speaking of Oxford, said is the author of an Arab Spring entry for Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology, and as contrinuted to Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East and other publications by OUP.
Atef is also invested in public scholarship, as he contributes to political, cultural, and intellectual public conversations: his essays appeared in US Amnesty Magazine, the “Immanent Frame” blog of the Social Science Research Council, , the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) as well as Jadaliyya, the influential news and critical commentary site of the Washington, DC-based Arab Studies Institute. He has written for Fair Observer, Truthout, and “Mobilizing Ideas”, the online blog of the Center for the Study of Social Movements of Notre Dame University.
Today Atef will present on his academic book Revolution Squared: Tahrir, Political Possibilities and Counterrevolution in Egypt (Duke University Press 2024).
Link to book: www.dukeupress.edu/revolution-squared