Event

This talk explores what became of young Muslim Egyptians' faith and practice in the wake of the defeated 2011 uprising. What was once a moment of national unity and euphoria quickly turned into a dire political situation in which people's hopes for a better political, economic and social future were dashed. Along with these disappointments, however, came social shifts, including how young revolutionaries came to see the religions that they grew up practicing and how they viewed authority figures they grew up respecting and obeying. 

Nareman Amin is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Religion from Princeton University. Her research focuses on religious authority, affect, political participation and Muslim youth culture. Her dissertation, "Revolutionary Religion: Youth and Islam in Post-2011 Egypt," is an ethnographic work that examines how political participation in a revolution can change the landscape of religious discourse and practice. In particular, she explores how Muslim youth partaking in the 2011 Egyptian uprising affectively responded to the promise and ultimate demise of a revolution. Based on an in-depth analysis of 60 interviews with young middle-class Muslim Egyptians and of traditional and social media, the project shows that, for many youth, revolutionary affects and emotions, notably hope, disappointment, disillusionment, shock and anger, shifted their understanding of what makes a person pious and what constitutes moral and religious perfection. Her work is published in Die Welt des Islams and Islamic Law and Society (forthcoming). She has an MA in Political Science from the University of South Florida and a BA in History from the American University in Cairo.