Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Sign In Sign Up

Timothy Mitchell

Timothy Mitchell, a contributing editor to Middle East Report, teaches politics and Middle Eastern studies at New York University.

MER Article

Dreamland: The Neoliberalism of Your Desires

Neoliberalism is a triumph of the political imagination. Its achievement is double: While narrowing the window of political debate, it promises from this window a prospect without limits. On the one hand, it frames public discussion in the elliptic language of neoclassical economics. The collective

Timothy Mitchell • 15 min read

MER Article

Worlds Apart

Ayman wanted a job in tourism. But he did badly on his high-school language exams and spent two years at a school in Luxor, across the river from his village, struggling to master enough rudimentary English and German to get into the hotel school at Qina. His most vivid memory from his two years in

Timothy Mitchell • 13 min read

MER Article

America's Egypt

Open almost any study of Egypt produced by an American or an international development agency and you are likely to find it starting with the same simple image. The question of Egypt’s economic development is almost invariably introduced as a problem of geography versus demography, pictured by descr

Timothy Mitchell • 45 min read

MER Article

Culture Across Borders

Salman Rushdie’s story of Ismail Najmuddin -- the former Bombay lunch-runner turned movie star, screen name Gibreel Farishta, the Muslim who played Hindu gods in numerous “theologicals,” migrant to London, victim of the bombing of flight AI-420, the man who fell from the sky and lived, only to dream

Timothy Mitchell • 8 min read

MER Article

The Ear of Authority

A confidential report compiled in October 1966 by the Criminal Investigation office of the Egyptian army accused Ahmad Hasan, former member of parliament and former government-appointed head of his village, of 11 “criminal and terrorist” offenses.

Timothy Mitchell • 13 min read