Timothy Mitchell
Encyclopedia
Timothy P. Mitchell is a British born political scientist and student of the Arab world. He is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He was previously Professor of Politics at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

.

Biography

Mitchell received his B.A. from Cambridge University in 1977 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in 1984.

Mitchell is married to Lila Abu-Lughod
Lila Abu-Lughod
Lila Abu-Lughod is a Palestinian-American professor of Anthropology and Women's and Gender Studies at Columbia University in New York City. A specialist on the Arab world, her seven books, most based on long term ethnographic research, cover topics from sentiment and poetry to nationalism and...

, a Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 anthropology and gender studies professor.

Academic career

Mitchell arrived in the United States in 1977 to start a Ph.D. in Politics at Princeton. He was "surprised to discover that the Politics Department at Princeton was teaching the same old positivism. I was interested in the politics of the Arab world, having traveled there several times, so I evaded political science by taking courses in Middle Eastern history and Arabic language and spent three of the next six years studying and researching in Cairo. Meanwhile, Discipline and Punish had just appeared in English and Orientalism came out a year later. I read these against the Marx I had studied as an undergraduate, and moved on to Derrida and Heidegger, all of which informed the book I eventually produced, Colonising Egypt."

He is an expert on the economy of modern Egypt, and a contributor to postcolonial theory.

Jeffrey Azarva has called Mitchell's book Colonising Egypt a staple of university syllabi. Mitchell's book rests on the theory that the roots of colonialism are as much internal as external, and that power operates through representation and culture as well as brute force. Nineteenth century reforms and modernization, Mitchell asserts, were backdoor attempts to subjugate Egypt to British influence. Urban planning and other attempts to control the basic elements of daily life enabled subjugation.

Mitchell responded to 9/11 with a critique of American support for autocracy in the Muslim world and on Israel, asserting that "Washington continues to side with the exclusionary politics and expansionist militarism of the Israeli government. Most Palestinians endure this American-funded violence and collective imprisonment with a quite extraordinary forbearance and fortitude. But the resources for collective resistance are very few, the rule of the Palestinian authority is increasingly inept and corrupt, and for some the politics of despair and a reactive violence are never far away."

Political Activity

Mitchell is a supporter of the academic boycott against Israel.

Mitchell also signed a petition "La démocratie en Iran, pas la guerre
Trois cents intellectuels appellent l'ONU à faire pression pour les droits de l'homme sans se focaliser sur le nucléaire." A letter advocating democracy in Iran and discouraging militarism. A letter supporting the right of NYU graduate teaching assistants to make their own decision on unionization. And many other political open letters signed by academics.

Books

  • Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity University of California Press, 2002.
  • Questions of Modernity, University of Minnesota Press, 2000 (editor and contributor).
  • Colonising Egypt, University of California Press, 1991.

External links

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