Dr. Mina Ibrahim

Minorities

Middle East

Prisons

Migration

Archives and Memory

June 2022

Doctorate of Philosophy (Cultural Studies & Social Sciences), Justus Liebig University & The International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), Giessen, Germany. Summa Cum Laude.

June 2015

Master of Arts with Distinction (Sociology & Social Anthropology), Central European University (CEU), Hungary. Cumulative GPA: 3.88.

February 2014

Bachelor of Arts with Highest Honours (Honours Political Science Program), Minors in History and Anthropology. The American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt. Cumulative GPA: 3.972.

CEDEJ Centre d’études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales (CEDEJ -USR 3123), December 2020, a Doctoral Fellowship for one month.

SFB/TRR 138 “Dynamics of Security”/University of Marburg, April 2020-March 2021, Writing-up Fellowship.

German Federal Government Excellence Initiative (DFG), October 2016- March 2020, Doctoral fellowship.

Arab Council for Social Sciences (ACSS), October 2019- February 2020, Grant for the project “An Oral History of the 2011 Egyptian Uprisings” in Cairo, Egypt.                                          

Columbia University Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life (IRCPL), October 2019, 

Grant to attend publication workshop in Oslo, Norway. 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2019, Grant to attend “An Arab Citizen” study program in Washington DC, United States.

Missions chrétiennes et Sociétés au Moyen-Orient (MisSMO), June and September 2019.

Fellow in Two-Parts Summer School “Sources and methods for a study of the missionary phenomenon in the Middle East (end 19th century- the Present)”, Rome (June) and Cairo (September).

03/2021- Present      Founder & Director, Shubra’s Archive for Research & Development (SARD), Cairo-Egypt

9/2018- Present        Project Manager, MENA Prison Forum, UMAM for Research and Documentation, and Institute for Foreign Relations (IFA) - Lebanon & Germany

9/2015-5/2016          Post-Master Fellow and Teaching Assistant, Department of Sociology-Anthropology-Egyptology (SAE)- The American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt.

Monograph

Identity, Marginalization, Activism, and Victimhood in Egypt: Misfits in the Coptic Christian Community (2022). London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Edited Volume

(With Tamer Nady) Salam Tram: Archiving Cairo’s Lost Tracks (2023). Cairo: Honna Publishing House (In Arabic).

Book Chapters

(With Gaétan du Roy) “Gīrah & ‘Ishrah: How do Muslims and Christians Live Together in Shubra?” in Neighborliness in Global Perspectives, Birgit Schäbler (ed.). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Press. Forthcoming: Winter/Spring 2023. 

“(Un-)Hiding the Samaritan’s Sexuality: Insights from a Coptic Woman’s Journal” (2022), in Sex in the Middle East and North Africa, L.L. Wynn & Angel M. Foster (eds.). Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, pp. 251-268.

 “Drinking in Times of Change: The Haunting Presence of Alcohol in Egypt” (2021), in Disputes on Alcohol in the Middle East and the Maghreb from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, Elife Biçer-Deveci & Phillipe Bourmaud (eds.), London: Palgrave, pp. 163-184. 

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“For the Sake of Marguirguis: Coptic Christian Charity as a Divine Community” (2020), Endowment Studies. Volume: 4, Issue: 1-2, pp. 66-91.

“The Invisible Life-Worlds of a Coptic Christian” (2019b), Middle East Topics & Arguments. Volume 13, pp. 89-94.

“A Minority at the Bar: Revisiting the Coptic Christian (In-) Visibility” (2019a), Social Compass. Volume: 66, Issue: 3, pp. 366-382.

“Modernity, Independence and the Feeding of the People: Disputing Nasser’s Economic Subsidies via the Spatial Organization Narrative” (2014), The Chronicles. Summer Issue: 12, pp. 17-20. 

Book Reviews

Review on Francesca Biancani: Sex Work in Colonial Egypt: Women, Modernity and the Global Economy. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. In: Egypte/Monde Arabe, 23/2021.

“Doing Fieldwork in Revolutionary Times” [Review on: Mittermaier, Amira: Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2019.]”. In: KULT_Online, 60/2019.

Review on Guirguis, Laure: Copts and the Security State: Violence, Coercion, and Sectarianism in Contemporary Egypt. California: Stanford University Press, 2017. In: Asian Journal for Social Sciences, 2/2019.

“The (Non-)Orthodox Tradition, The (Non-)Orthodox Everydayness” (Review on Luehrmann, Sonja: Contemporary Orthodox Christian Spirituality in Practice. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2018.]”. In: KULT_Online 56/2018.

“Copts in the Context of Perfect Faith” [Review on: van Doorn-Harder, Nelly: Copts in Context: Negotiating Identity, Tradition, and Modernity. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2017.]”. In: KULT_Online 54/2018.

“What is Missing from the Arab Spring?” [Review on: Bayat, Asef: Revolution without Revolutionaries. Making Sense of the Arab Spring. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017.]”. In: KULT_Online 53/2018.

“The Politics of Sectarianism and Repentance in Egyptian Prisons: Notes from a Coptic Khidma”, August 2022, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

“Egyptian Football’s Missing Archives”, Fall 2021, Arab Lit Quarterly Journal.

“SARD: The Story of a Research Center in Urban Cairo” (2021), SIAS Working Paper Series 32. Agnès Deboulet and Erina Iwasaki (eds.), Public Space, Public Sphere, and Publicness in the Middle East: Proceedings of the International Seminar held at Cairo, Egypt on March 8 & 9, 2020. pp. 31-38.

“Coptic Misfits”, an Interview with Coptic Canadian History Project”, January 2020.

“Crossings of Lord’s Paths: A review of Shady Lewis’s Novel about the Copts”, Daraj, May 2019.

“Christmas Misfits: Ethnographic Notes on the Coptic Waguihs”, Coptic Canadian History Project, December 2018.

“Thinking not about Copts but about Egypt”, Daraj. November 2018 (In Arabic).

“Copts of Egypt: The Church, the Coffeehouse, and the Prison”, Daraj, October 2018 (In Arabic).

“The Absence of Coptic Christians on the Rabaa Square”, Jadaliyya, August 2018.

 “Global Prisons and Prison Life” (Online-Workshop with Students from Universities Geneva, Marburg, and Cologne), November 2021.

“State Force, Prison, and Torture: The Afterlives of Political Imprisonment in the MENA” (Online Co-Organized Conference). MENA Prison Forum & University of Cologne (Institute of Oriental Studies), Cologne-Germany, November 2020.

“Toward Prison Studies for the Middle East” (Workshop). University of Giessen, Giessen-Germany, November 2020.

“Perspectives of (Ir-)Religiosity and Violence in Egypt” (Lecture). University of Giessen, Giessen-Germany, November 2020.

“Different Worlds? Ethnography, Religion, and Travelling Critique between Europe & MENA” (Co-organized Conference). Dutch-Flemish Institute in Cairo & University of Amsterdam, Cairo-Egypt, March 2019.

“Villains! Constructing Narratives of Evil” (Co-Organized Conference). University of Giessen, Giessen-Germany, February 2019.

“The Ruse of Perfection: Stories about Coptic Christians’ (In-) Visibility” (Lecture), Orient Institute Beirut (OIB), Beirut-Lebanon, June 2018.

“Conceptualizing Sacred Spaces: Perspectives from the Study of Culture” (Co-Organized Conference). University of Giessen, Giessen-Germany, May 2018.

“Heroes & Martyrs: Contested Figures between Agency & Victimhood” (Workshop). University of Giessen, Giessen-Germany, May 2017.

“Archiving the Untold: Everyday Practices of Forgetting and Hiding,” IFPO- Beirut. January 10th, 2023.

“Abolish Prisons or End Impunity: A Dialectic in Times of Transitional (and Lack) of Justice,” Danish Institute Against Torture (DIGNITY)- Copenhagen. June 10th, 2022.

“Bars, Casinos, and Porn Sites: In the Shadows of Altars, Domes, and Street Protests,” French Institute for Oriental Archeology in Cairo (IFAO) and Center for Coptic Studies (Alexandria University)- Cairo. February 17th, 2022.

“Trams, Parishes, and Language Schools: Class Struggles in Shubra,” Centre d’études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales (CEDEJ -USR 3123) – Cairo. December 5th, 2021.

“Modes of Post-Prison Alienation and Estrangement in Egypt,” MENA Prison Forum & University of Cologne- Cologne, Germany. November 13th, 2020 (Online).

“Coptic Misfits of the Egyptian Prisons: A Theological, Political, and Social Inquiry,” University of Gießen & Collaborative Research Group (Dynamics of Security)- Gießen & Marburg, Germany. June 29th, 2020 (Online).

“SARD: The Story of a Research Center in Urban Cairo,” Centre d’études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales (CEDEJ -USR 3123) – Cairo and Centre for Islamic Studies at Sophia University (SIAS) – Tokyo with the support of Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) Cairo- Cairo, Egypt. March 8th, 2020.

(With Gaétan du Roy) “Everyday Practices of Neighborliness in Urban Cairo,” Orient Institute Beirut & The American University in Cairo- Cairo, Egypt. December 14th, 2019.

“Ethnography and the Politics of Writing.” Cairo Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences (CIILAS), Alexandria-Egypt, Fall 2021.

“Prison in the Middle East and North Africa: Histories, Cultures, and Practices” (Online Course). University of Marburg, Marburg-Germany, Summer Semester 2021.

“Villains, Misfits, and tricksters of the Middle East” Cairo Institute for Liberal Arts & Sciences (CILAS), Cairo-Egypt, Fall 2020.

“Anthropology of/from the Margins.” University of Marburg, Marburg-Germany, Winter Semester 2019-2020.

“Anthropology of the Middle East & North Africa.” University of Giessen, Giessen-Germany, Summer Semester 2019.

Joschka Dreher. “Spaces of (Political) Violence: Production and Perception among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon”, Marburg University- Germany (MA Thesis). Summer Semester 2023.

Chiara Burghard. “Screening Victimhood: Gender and MENA Prisons in TV Series”, Marburg University-Germany (BA Thesis). Summer Semester 2022.