Muhammad Amasha

Culture · Politics · Religion · Theory

I am a cultural and political sociologist who studies political solidarity and polarization, religion, intellectuals, and art, often in the contemporary Middle East. My work gives special attention to social and political theory and intersects with political science, religious studies, Middle Eastern studies, and history. 

Currently, I am a PhD candidate in Sociology at Yale University. 

My PhD dissertation studies political solidarity and polarization over time and across the center and periphery, with the empirical case of Egyptian politics 2000-2025. This is part of a larger project studying the historical developments of political coexistence from the premodern to modern times, and the links between Global Northern politics and coexistence in the Global South. My previous project (2018-2025) focused on intellectuals' politics during revolutionary times. Through an abductive, in-depth research of religious intellectuals' Arab Spring politics, I propose a new theory of why people experience dilemmas and how dilemmas lead intellectuals to political inconsistencies. My research also includes studies of ideological change in revolutionary times and music and culture in poor urban neighborhoods. 

My peer-reviewed articles have been published in the American Journal of Islam and Society and the Journal for Islamic and Muslim Studies. I also write for the public (reports, essays, op-eds) in English and Arabic.