About
Jack McGinn is a PhD candidate in Sociology at LSE, focusing on the memory of the 2011 Syrian Revolution. He also works as the Communications Manager at the LSE Middle East Centre, where he edits and designs the paper series. Prior to coming to London, he received his MSc in Arab World Studies from the University of Edinburgh, and worked as an editor, translator and teacher in Palestine, Jordan and England.
Key expertise: Syria, social movements, revolution, political sociology, memory studies, Middle East, Palestine
Research
Working Thesis Title: Remembering Syria’s Revolutionary Moment(s): Echoes of an Unfinished Past
Supervisors: Professor Chetan Bhatt (Department of Sociology) and Dr Sara Salem (Department of Sociology)
Thesis Abstract:
My PhD thesis looks at the memory and historical significance of the 2011 Syrian revolution, and attempts to identify what is missed through categorisations of it as a ‘failed’, ‘inauthentic’ or ‘colour’ revolution. I follow the ethnographic work of scholars like Charlotte Al-Khalili (2023) who have developed a conceptual repertoire to understand ‘defeated’ or ‘ghostly’ revolutions through new lenses – ‘the hidden’, ‘the inside/outside (of revolutionary space and time)’ and so on. I also refer to Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s work on how power impacts the creation/‘silencing’ of particular histories to demonstrate how this applies in the Syrian case.
Teaching
IR160: Conflict and Power in the Contemporary Middle East (Summer School)