NNA - American University of Beirut (AUB) Professor Sari Hanafi was elected by the British Academy, the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences, as Corresponding Fellow, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the SHAPE subjects – the social sciences, humanities, and the arts.
“What is nice in this position is the possibility of participating in setting the research agenda for the social sciences and humanities and for calls to action that concern the UK and beyond,” Professor Hanafi commented. “I hope I can open the academy to areas of knowledge that may undo the harms of Eurocentrism.”
Professor Sari Hanafi is a professor of sociology at the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies; chair of the Islamic Studies program; and director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at AUB. AUB president, Dr. Fadlo Khuri, congratulated Professor Hanafi on this recognition saying, “I am fully aware of the profound honor this is for you and for AUB. The British Academy is a centuries old honor society. This is a wonderful and fitting recognition of your stellar work on valuing social sciences in their mother tongue (Arabic in your case) over decades at AUB, and of your global impact.”
The British Academy announced that this year, a total of 85 Fellows have been elected to the fellowship. Fifty-two fellows were elected from 24 universities across the UK. The fellowship has elected a further 29 corresponding fellows from universities in North America, India, South Africa, Hong Kong, Lebanon, and Tanzania; as well as four honorary fellows. The new fellows of the British Academy join a community of over 1,600 of the leading minds in the subjects of humanities and social sciences, from the UK and overseas.
Welcoming the new fellows, Professor Julia Black, president of the British Academy, said, "With our new fellows’ expertise and insights, the academy is better placed than ever to open new seams of knowledge and understanding and to enhance the wellbeing and prosperity of societies around the world. I congratulate each of our new fellows on their achievement and look forward to working with them.”
Professor Sari Hanafi
In addition to his role at AUB, Professor Sari Hanafi is the president of the International Sociological Association. He is also the editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology and chair of the Islamic Studies program. Recently, he created the “Portal for Social Impact of Scientific Research in/on the Arab World” (Athar). He was also the vice president of the Board of the Arab Council of Social Science in 2015 and 2016.
Hanafi was awarded his PhD in sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales-Paris (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in 1994. He served as a visiting professor/fellow at the University of Poitiers and Migrintern and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in France, the University of Bologna and Ravenna in Italy, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. Professor Hanafi was also a former senior researcher at the Cairo-based French research center, Centre d'études et de documentation économique juridique et sociale, between 1994 and 2000. 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, and politics of scientific research.
Professor Sari Hanafi is the winner of the 2014 Abdelhamid Shouman Award and the 2015 Kuwait Award for Social Science. In 2019, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the National University of San Marcos.-- AUB
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