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DR Sophie Chamas' Outputs (18)

A Pedagogy of Rumours (2024)
Book Chapter
Chamas, S. (2024). A Pedagogy of Rumours. In M. Kaabour (Ed.), The Queer Arab Glossary (126-132). Saqi Books

Hope as a Discipline: Reflecting on the Lebanese Revolution (2023)
Digital Artefact
Chamas, S., Sayegh, G., & Alessandrini, A. (2023). Hope as a Discipline: Reflecting on the Lebanese Revolution. [Podcast]

In this episode (recorded 2022), Sophie Chamas and Ghiwa Sayegh reflect on the experience of listening back to our conversation about the Lebanese revolution of 2019-20 at a much less hopeful moment. They consider the importance of looking back, both... Read More about Hope as a Discipline: Reflecting on the Lebanese Revolution.

Mourning Sarah Hegazi: Grief and the Cultivation of Queer Arabness (2022)
Journal Article
Chamas, S., & Allouche, S. (2022). Mourning Sarah Hegazi: Grief and the Cultivation of Queer Arabness. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2022.0046

In this article, we engage in a discursive analysis and affective reading of written and recorded responses to the suicide of Sarah Hegazi, an Egyptian queer feminist communist who took her own life in exile in Canada in the summer of 2020. In the af... Read More about Mourning Sarah Hegazi: Grief and the Cultivation of Queer Arabness.

Community Organizing and the Limits of Participatory Democracy in Lebanon (2022)
Book Chapter
Chamas, S. (2022). Community Organizing and the Limits of Participatory Democracy in Lebanon. In S. Haugbolle, & M. LeVine (Eds.), Altered States: The Remaking of the Political in the Arab World. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/b22870-3

This chapter draws on two years of fieldwork with an activist-initiated community group in the East Beirut neighborhood of Mar Mikhael, a locale suffering the consequences of an aggressive process of gentrification. I argue that gentrification has se... Read More about Community Organizing and the Limits of Participatory Democracy in Lebanon.

Lil Watan: Queer Patriotism in Chauvinistic Lebanon (2021)
Journal Article
Chamas, S. (2023). Lil Watan: Queer Patriotism in Chauvinistic Lebanon. Sexualities, 26(1/2), 230-251. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607211047523

There exists a robust literature on the impact of the sexualisation of the war on terror as an imperial endeavour on both queer and non-queer subjects in the Middle East. This article explores the consequences for LGBT activism of the localisation of... Read More about Lil Watan: Queer Patriotism in Chauvinistic Lebanon.

Activism as a Way of Life: The Social World of Social Movements in Middle-Class Beirut (2021)
Journal Article
Chamas, S. (2021). Activism as a Way of Life: The Social World of Social Movements in Middle-Class Beirut. Partecipazione e conflitto, 14(2), 530-546. https://doi.org/10.1285/i20356609v14i2p530

This article concerns itself with why and how activists persevere and manage to reproduce themselves as activists in contexts where they experience what is described as routine "failure", taking Lebanon's activist scene as its focus. Drawing on ethno... Read More about Activism as a Way of Life: The Social World of Social Movements in Middle-Class Beirut.

Reading Marx in Beirut: Disorganised Study and the Politics of Queer Utopia (2020)
Journal Article
Chamas, S. (2020). Reading Marx in Beirut: Disorganised Study and the Politics of Queer Utopia. Middle East - Topics & arguments, 14, 143-159. https://doi.org/10.17192/meta.2020.14.8021

This article draws on ethnographic research carried out with Marxist reading groups run by a Lebanese revolutionary socialist organization. I examine the labor that Marxist theoretical practice was doing in a political conjuncture widely viewed as po... Read More about Reading Marx in Beirut: Disorganised Study and the Politics of Queer Utopia.

Laughing Sectarianism Away: The Possibilities and Limitations of Lebanese Satire (2019)
Journal Article
Chamas, S. (2019). Laughing Sectarianism Away: The Possibilities and Limitations of Lebanese Satire. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 12(13), 261-281. https://doi.org/10.1163/18739865-01203001

In this article, I examine the potential and shortcomings of political satire as a counter-discursive tool in Lebanon. I take the popular shows BBCHI and CHINN as objects of study, and discuss the ways in which these programs challenged narratives of... Read More about Laughing Sectarianism Away: The Possibilities and Limitations of Lebanese Satire.