The Nature of Middle East Scholarship Committed to Activism--a Conversation with Joel Beinin

On this episode of “Speaking Out of Place” we talk with eminent Middle East historian Joel Beinin on a range of topics that center on the fact that for some scholars, activism and scholarship are not only compatible—they are inextricably linked.

Joel will talk about his time as a union organizer in Detriot, working in the automobile industry, and how his learning Arabic was facilitated by talking with Arab autoworkers. He then talks about his first book on labor movements in Egypt. We spend some time talking about the particular challenges of teaching about the Middle East at a place like Stanford, and the effects of its historical conservatism, and current neoliberal trajectory. We end by talking about advice we would give undergraduate and graduate students today.

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University. His research and writing focus on the social and cultural history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine, and Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

He received his A.B. from Princeton University in 1970, A.M. from Harvard University in 1974, and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1982. He taught at Stanford from 1983 to 2019 with a hiatus as Director of Middle East Studies and Professor of History at the American University in Cairo in 2006-08. In 2002 he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.

Beinin has written or edited twelve books, among them: A Critical Political Economy of the Modern Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021); co-edited with Bassam Haddad and Sherene Seikaly; Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2016); Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, (Stanford University Press, 1st ed. 2011, 2nd ed. 2013); co-edited with Frédéric Vairel; Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954 (Princeton University Press, 1987), co-autho­red with Zachary Lockman; and Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (South End Press, 1989) co-edited with Zachary Lockman.

His articles have been published in leading scholarly journals as well as Jacobin, Democracy in Exile, Jewish Currents, +972 webzine, Carnegie Papers, The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, Middle East Report, Jadaliyya, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, and several blogs.
 
Joel has been interviewed on Al-Jazeera TV, BBC radio, (US) National Public Radio, and many other TV and radio programs throughout the world as well by the global print media.

His work has been translated into Arabic, Hebrew, French, and Turkish.