Profile
Benoit Challand is Associate Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research. He has previously taught at New York University, the University of Fribourgh (CH), and at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence (Italy). Recently, he was co-editor of The Struggle for Influence in the Middle East: The Arab Uprisings and Foreign Assistance and co-author, with Chiara Bottici, of Imagining Europe: Myth, Memory and Identity. His latest book, Violence and Representation in the Arab Uprisings, is coming out with Cambridge University Press in December 2022.
Degrees Held
PhD in Social and Political Science from the European University Institute, in Florence (2005).
MA in Near East Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London (2000).
MA in Contemporary History and Greek Philology, University of Fribourg (1999).
Professional Affiliation
Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA).
American Sociological Association.
Center on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute, Geneva.
SeSaMo, Società per gli Studi sul Medio Oriente.
Recent Publications
2021 “Toward an Interstitial Global Theory”, co-authored with Chiara Bottici. Special issue on Re-Imagining Civilization, Globalizations pp. 1-24 (early view at: 10.1080/14747731.2021.1989140).
2021 “Al-Lamarkaziyya fil-Yemen wa Masudat al-Dustour Al-Fidiraly Aam 2015” [Decentralization in Yemen and the 2015 Draft of a Federal Constitution – in Arabic]. Al-Masar, num. 65 (https://al-masar.org/), pp. 21-74.
2021 “The Social Life of Non-profit and Third Sector in the Middle East”, in Armando Salvatore, Sari Hanafi, and Kieko Obuse (eds), Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Online. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190087470.013.20.
2020 “The Political Economy of Local Governance in Yemen: Past and Present”, co-authored with Joshua Rogers, Contemporary Arab Affairs 13(4), pp. 45-69.
2020 “Current Legacies of Colonial Violence and Racialization in Tunisia,”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 40(2), pp. 248-255.
2019: “Europe After Eurocentrism ?” (with Chiara Bottici), Special issue on The Future of Europe, Agon Hamza & Frank Ruda (eds), Crisis & Critique 7(1), pp. 56-87.
2018: “Research in and on the Palestinian Occupied Territories”, in Janine A. Clark and Francesco Cavatorta (eds.), Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa: Methodological and Ethical Challenges, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 62-72.
2017: “Debates on civil society in the Mediterranean”, in Federico Volpi and Richard Gillepsie, (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Mediterranean Politics, Vol. VI: Non-state actors and social movements, London: Routledge, pp. 295-308.
2017: “Citizenship and Violence in the Arab worlds. A Historical Sketch”, in Bryan S. Turner and Jürgen Mackert (eds.), The Transformation of Citizenship, Vol. 3: Struggle, Resistance and Violence, London: Routledge, pp. 93-112.
2017: The Struggle for Influence in the Middle East: The Arab Uprisings and Foreign Assistance, co-edited with Federica Bicchi, and Steven Heydemann, London: Routledge.
2017: “Citizenship and Violence in the Arab Worlds: A Historical Sketch”, book chapter in Bryan S. Turner and Jürgen Mackert (eds.), The Transformation of Citizenship, Vol. 3: Struggle, Resistance and Violence, London: Routledge, pp. 93-112.
2013: Guest editor of a special issue of Constellations. An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 20(1), “Social Theory and the Arab Uprisings”.
2013: Imagining Europe: Myth, Memory and Identity, co-authored with Chiara Bottici, New York: Cambridge University Press.
2012: Le développement, une affaire d’ONG ? Associations, Etats et bailleurs dans le monde arabe, co-edited with Caroline Abu-Sada, Paris: Karthala-IREMAM.
2011: The Politics of Imagination, edited with Chiara Bottici, London: Routledge.
2010: The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations, co-author Chiara Bottici, London: Routledge (paperback available since June 2012).
2009: Palestinian Civil Society: Foreign Donors and the Power to Promote and Exclude, London: Routledge.
2000: La Ligue Marxiste Révolutionnaire en Suisse Romande (1969-1980), Fribourg: Presses de l’ Université de Fribourg.
Performances and Appearances
In the last years, Benoit Challand has developed new interdisciplinary courses on settler colonialism in the USA thanks to four grants from the Mellon Foundation (Periclean Faculty Leadership Program in the Humanities and Civic Liberal Arts Initiative).
The NSSR blog Research Matters published a report on the walking tours proposed as part of one of these classes. See the article “NSSR and Lang Students Explore Suppressed Histories in New York City”.
Research Interests
Political sociology; global critical theory; Arab politics; civil society mobilization; foreign aid; Western European Marxism.
Awards And Honors
Mellon Periclean Faculty Leadership Grant, 2021.
Civil Liberal Arts Initiative (Mellon Foundation, 2017, 2020 and 2021).
Marie Curie Fellow, Intra-European Fellowship (2006-2008).