Professor Lina Khatib

Professor Lina Khatib is the Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at SOAS University of London, where she is MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies and Professor of Practice in the Department of Politics and International Studies.

Professor Khatib is an internationally renowned authority on the Middle East. Before becoming Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute, she directed policy research programmes at some of the world’s leading policy institutes. She served as director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, where is now an Associate Fellow, and prior to that was director of the Carnegie Middle East Center at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Senior Associate at the Arab Reform Initiative.

Prior to that she co-founded and led the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Before moving to Stanford, she lectured at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work is firmly interdisciplinary, spanning the study and practice of international affairs, political transformations, and visual culture and communications.

She is the author of several policy papers and three books including Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle (2013), and has co-authored, edited or co-edited four other volumes. She is a frequent writer and commentator on current affairs in the Middle East, with appearances on channels like CNN and BBC and op-eds in outlets such as Foreign Policy, TIME, Foreign Affairs, and the Guardian.

She is also a practitioner in the cultural scene. Her music projects include co-founding and co-leading the World Metal Congress. As a visual artist, her work has been exhibited internationally, including in group shows like Newtopia: The State of Human Rights (Mechelen, 2012) and a solo show, 24 Hours on Hamra Street (London, 2018). She is currently developing a theatrical piece on politics and society in the Middle East.