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Mona Khneisser

Profile picture for Mona Khneisser

Contact Information

702 S Wright St
3120 Lincoln Hall
Urbana, IL 61801
MC 454
Doctoral Candidate

Biography

Mona Khneisser is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include social movements, critical development studies, infrastructure, and political economy, focusing on Lebanon. Her current doctoral research examines crisis and everyday life amidst the financial and economic collapse in Lebanon.

Her MA research in Sociology at AUB examined alternative forms of collective mobilization and organization that developed during the 2015 garbage crisis in Lebanon, and was published in the Journal of Critical Sociology and awarded the Erik Olin Wright Distinguished Article Award (2020). Her MA research at UIUC examined the World Bank-funded Bisri Dam project, offering a material hydro-geological lens on post-colonial state-building, and the political economy of infrastructural developments in Lebanon.  

 

 

Research Interests

Social movements

Political economy

Political sociology

Crisis and Everyday Politics

Critical development studies

Infrastructure 

Grants

University of Illinois, Illinois Distinguished Fellowship (2019-2022)

American Political Science Association (APSA), MENA Collaborative Grant (2022)

University of Illinois, Department of Sociology, Summer Writing Fellowship (2022)

American Political Science Association (APSA), Professional Development Grant (2021)

Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Wadad Kadi Student Travel Fellowship (2021)

University of Illinois, Department of Sociology, Douglas Barnes Scholarship (2021)

University of Illinois Graduate College, Dissertation Travel Grant (2021)

Awards and Honors

Illinois Distinguished Fellowship (2019-2022)

Erik Olin Wright Best Article Award, SAGE Critical Sociology (2020)

Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Graduate Student Paper Prize (2022)

 

 

 

Highlighted Publications

Journal Articles

The Marketing of Protest and Antinomies of Collective Organization in Lebanon. Critical Sociology, SAGE. Vol 45: Issue 7-8 https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920518792069

The Specter of ‘Politics’ & Ghosts of ‘Alternatives’ Past: Lebanese ‘Civil Society’ and the Antinomies of Contemporary Politics. Critical Sociology, SAGE. Vol 43: Issue 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920519830756

‘Civil Societies’ & the Arab Uprisings- Prospects for Socio-Political Change: A Comparative Analysis of the Ongoing Tunisian & Egyptian Plight. In Nasser Yassin & Robert Hobbe (Eds.) Women, Civil Society and Policy Change in the Arab World. Palgrave Macmillan.

 

 

Recent Publications