The GDC will host renowned American University of Beirut sociologist and former president of the International Sociological Association, Dr. Sari Hanafi, on the topic of his most recent book, Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology (Liverpool University Press, September 2025). Professor Hanafi will examine, among others, how social scientists often reproduce the very injustices they seek to challenge, taking entrenched positions while dismissing alternative perspectives. He also discusses the crisis of liberal democracy in the time of extreme polarization.
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Lecturer Profile:
Sari Hanafi is currently a Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and Chair of the Islamic Studies program at the American University of Beirut. He was the President of the International Sociological Association (2018-2023). He was also the editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology (Arabic) (2017-2022). Recently he created the "Portal for Social impact of scientific research in/on the Arab World" (Athar). He was the Vice President of the board of the Arab Council of Social Science (2015-2016). He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales-Paris (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) (1994). He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on the sociology of religion; connection of moral philosophy to the social sciences; the sociology of (forced) migration applied to the Palestinian refugees; politics of scientific research. Among his recent books are: Studying Islam in the Arab World: The Rupture Between Religion and the Social Sciences (2024 in Routledge); Knowledge Production in the Arab World: The Impossible Promise. (with R. Arvanitis) ; The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East (co-edited with A. Salvatore and K. Obuse); He is the winner of 2014 Abdelhamid Shouman Award and 2015 Kuwait Award for social science. In 2019, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the National University of San Marcos (the first and the leading university in Lima- Peru - established in 1551). In 2022, he became an International fellow of the British Academy. His recent book is Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology (Liverpool Univ. Press) (published as well in Arabic, Persian and Turkish and forthcoming in 5 other languages). His website: https://sites.aub.edu.lb/sarihanafi/
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Due to some unexpected circumstances, this book lecture is for now postoned. We will try to reschedule it at a later date.
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Inquiries: gdc@tufs.ac.jp
This event is co-organized by GDC and Kakenhi Project 24K20991 (PI: Mostafa Khalili). For GDC, please see this.
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