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Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

 
Middle Eastern Studies
Assistant Professor in Modern Arabic Studies
Email address: 
Telephone: 
+44 (0)1223 765052
Biography: 

Elizabeth Monier is an Assistant Professor of Modern Arabic Studies.  She specialises in the modern politics, history and society of the Middle East and has a particular interest in Egypt, Oman, the UAE, Iraq and Kuwait.  She has previously held fellowships at Cambridge, the London School of Economics and Political Science, GIGA's Middle East Institute and the University of Warwick and was a research associate at Darwin College, Cambridge.  She holds a PhD in Politics and International  Studies from the University of Cambridge and is a member of the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum.

Her current research includes a project on nations, state-building and the inclusion of minorities, focusing mainly on constitutional development in early twentieth century Egypt and Iraq. She is also developing several different projects related to societal cohesion and security, public and development diplomacy and multilateralism in the global order, and concepts of insecurity, citizenship and tolerance in the Arab World.  Her teaching interests are focused on connecting the study of the Middle East with developments in global history and politics.
 

Teaching responsibilities: 

Dr Monier teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the history and politics of the modern Middle East, in particular, the Arab world

Supervision information: 

Dr Monier is open to supervising research on the following topics:

The politics of the modern Arab World.

State-Society relations in Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman.

Nationalism and state-building.

Identity politics and sectarianism.

Minorities.

Regional power, geopolitics and Arab diplomacy.

Arabic media.

Research interests: 
  • Identity politics and sectarianism: How ethnic, national and religious identity formations interact with the mobilisation of sectarianism and communal/minority politics.
  • Contemporary politics, history and society of Egypt and Arab Gulf States.
  • Middle Eastern Christians.
  • Political and conceptual history of the Middle East, especially Arabic conceptualisations of insecurity, sectarianism, inclusion of 'minorities', al-Mowatana and al-Tasamuh.
  • Arab diplomacy, development diplomacy and multilateralism
  • The Middle East in global history and politics.

Books

Articles, Book Chapters etc

The Meaning and Purpose of ‘Minority Media’ in the Middle East and North Africa Joe Khalil (ed.) & Gholam Khiabany (ed.) & Tourya Guaaybess (ed.) & Bilge Yesil (ed.) The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East pp. 82-9 (2023)
The securitisation of religious minorities: implications for the inclusion/exclusion of Christians in Egyptian national spaces Javier Bordón (ed.) Spatialising Securitisation in the Middle East pp. 44-51 (2023)
Religious tolerance in the Arab Gulf states: Christian organizations, soft power, and the politics of sustaining the “family–state” beyond the rentier model Politics and Religion pp. 1-18 (2023)
Minorities or citizens in the Middle East? Locating the ‘minority question’ in the intersecting histories of collective national belonging and state-building Nations and Nationalism, Vol 29 Issue 1, January 2023 pp. 295-310 (2022)
Towards a New Basis for Societal Stability through Re-Imagining National Minority/Majority Boundaries Oxford Middle East Review, vol. 6 pp. 62-71 (2022)
Minorities or Citizens in the Middle East? Locating the “minority question” in the intersecting histories of collective national belonging and state-building Nations and Nationalism pp. 1-6 (2022)
Christianity in Egypt Mark Lamport (ed.) & Mitri Raheb (ed.) & Meredith Riedel (ed.) The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East (2020)
Christianity in the Arab Gulf States Mark Lamport (ed.) & Mitri Raheb (ed.) & Meredith Riedel (ed.) The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East (2020)
Spatial Practices of ‘Retreat’ Among Egyptian Christians: Isolating or Empowering? International Journal of Levant Studies, vol. 2 pp. 5-28 (2020)
Bethlehem and the Middle East Timothy Larsen (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Christmas (2020)
Christians in Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE: Expanding Tolerance? C.S. Popa (ed.) From Polarization to Cohabitation in the New Middle East (2020)
The Chaldean patriarch and the discourse of ‘inclusive citizenship’: restructuring the political representation of Christians in Iraq since 2003 Religion, State and Society, 48:5, pp. 361-377 (2020)
Navigating Historical Minority Dilemmas Today: presenting violence against Copts to an international audience after 2011 Hamza Tayebi and Jochen Lobah (ed.) Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in the MENA Region: Minorities, Subalternity, and Resistance (2019)
Christians and Other Religious Minorities in the Middle East Thanassis Cambanis and Michael Wahid Hanna (ed.) Citizenship and Its Discontents: The Struggle for Rights, Pluralism, and Inclusion in the Middle East (2019)
Faith and Culture Kenneth R. Ross, Mariz Tadros and Todd M. Johnson (ed.) Christianity in North Africa and West Asia (Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity Volume 2) (2018)
Online Media as Research Topic and Research Tool: fact, fiction and Facebook Francesco Cavatorta and Janine Clark (ed.) Doing Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa: Methodological and Ethical Challenges (2018)
Middle Eastern Minorities and the Media Paul Rowe (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East (2018)
Middle Eastern Minorities in Global Media and the Politics of National Belonging Arab Media and Society. Issue 24 Summer/Fall. (2017)
Egypt, Iran, and the Hizbullah Cell: Using Sectarianism to “De-Arabize” and Regionalize Threats to National Interests. The Middle East Journal. Vol 69, No. 3 Summer pp. 341-357 (2015)
The Failure of the Muslim Brotherhood: implications for Egypt's regional status (with: Dr Annette Ranko) Henner Furtig (ed.) Regional Powers in the Middle East pp. 61-80 (2014)
The Arabness of Middle East regionalism: the Arab Spring and competition for discursive hegemony between Egypt, Iran and Turkey. Contemporary Politics. Vol.20, No.4 pp. 421-434 (2014)
Social v. State Media: Egypt’s Fight for Information After the Uprising (with: Mina Monier) Ralph Berenger (ed.) Social Media Go to War: Rage, Rebellion and Revolution in the Age of Twitter (2013)
The Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood: Implications for Egypt (with: Dr Annette Ranko) Middle East Policy. Vol. XX No.4 Winter pp. 111-123 (2013)
The ‘mediation’ of Muslim–Christian relations in Egypt: the strategies and discourses of the official Egyptian press during Mubarak's presidency Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. Vol.23 No.1 pp. 31-44 (2012)
The Arab Spring and Coptic–Muslim Relations: From Mubarak to the Muslim Brotherhood The European Yearbook of Minority Issues. Vol. 11 pp. 169-186 (2012)
Connecting the National and the Virtual: Can Facebook Activism Remain Relevant After Egypt’s January 25 Uprising? International Journal of Communication. No.5 pp. 1225-1237 (2011)