Philipp Winkler, M.A.

Philipp Winkler, M.A.

Research Associate

Institute of Political Science
Chair of Middle East Politics and Society

Room: Room 00.015

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  • Since Juli 2024 Research Associate, Chair of Politics and Society of the Middle East, FAU Erlangen–Nürnberg
  • April 2023-September 2024 Research Associate, Arabic Studies Department, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg
  • 2018-2022 Doctoral scholarship awarded by the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst (PhD Project Title: “Vietnam and Cuba as revolutionary role-models? Debates among the Arab Left since 1967”)
  • 2015 Master’s Thesis “The Path to Modernity: Socialism and the Soviet Union in the Eyes of the Arab Socialists. The Cases of Egypt, Syria and Iraq”
  • before 2015 Studies in History and Political Sciences in Erlangen (Germany) und Izmir (Turkey)

  • Demographic Development and Population Politics in the MENA region
  • Nationalism and Nation Building
  • Modern Arab Political Thought
  • History and Present of the Arab Left
  • Gender Politics in the MENA region

  • Arab Visitors’ Accounts of the Socialist Experiment. How Arab Travelers Saw the Soviet Union in the Post-Stalinist 1950s, in: Albrecht Fuess, Heidi Hein-Kircher, Julia Obertreis, Stefan Rohdewald (Eds.): Mobility Dynamics between Eastern Europe and the Near East. Exploring a Cross-Regional Shared History. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2024, pp. 207-228.
  • Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ṭāhā’s “Second Message of Islam”, in: Maha El Kaisy-Friemuth, Reza Hajatpour und Mohammed Abdel Rahem (Eds.): Rationalität in der Islamischen Theologie, Band II: Die Moderne. Berlin: de Gruyter 2022, pp. 137-168.
  • The ‘Che Guevara of the Middle East’: Remembering Khalid Ahmad Zaki’s Revolutionary Struggle in Iraq’s Southern Marshes, in: Guirguis, Laure (Ed.): The Arab Lefts. Histories and Legacies, 1950s–1970s, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2020, pp. 207-221.

“Vietnam and Cuba as revolutionary role-models? Debates among the Arab Left since 1967”

This project examines the political and ideological orientations of the Arab Left after the crushing defeat by Israel in June 1967 in respect to its views of other „Third World“ revolutionary movements. This event caused a lively debate among the Arab Left’s protagonists, who started looking for models of successful anti-imperialist struggles in other parts of the Third World that they could imitate. They especially admired the Vietcong’s war against the USA and the movements started by Che Guevara as „model revolutions“. The core of the thesis will be an analysis of the discourse of the Arab Left in its most important theoretical journals in the years after 1967 with regard to those topics. In addition to that, interviews with former activists will be conducted. Sojourns in Beirut and Alexandria will provide access to the required sources. The project will make an important contribution to the field of transnational intellectual history by examining so-far neglected connections between different parts of the Third World. By providing deeper insights into the trajectory of the Arab Left, it will also help to understand its decline after 1970 and the concurrent rise of Islamist movements in the Arab World.

The project is supported by a PhD-fellowship of the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst.